The war in Ukraine is getting more intense by the second.
And as we can tell by events being tracked on social media, we can watch the war unfold in nearly real-time.
And for Putin, he can watch his best tanks get destroyed.
Watch: Russia Loses Yet Another T-90M Tank – For months, dramatic video footage of Russian T-90M tanks being destroyed by Ukrainian strikes has been shared on Twitter and Telegram.
The videos demonstrate a huge problem for Russia, with even its most advanced and modern tanks being easily destroyed by Ukrainian strikes.
Yet another one of these videos emerged back in February on Twitter, shared by the popular war-tracking account Ukraine Weapons Tracker, showing a Russian tank left in flames in a forest near Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast.
The incredible video, which includes footage recorded from a cell phone on the ground and later from a drone, starts by showing the tank engulfed by flames in a wooded area.
Later in the video, the smoke from the fire becomes so huge that a large section of the forest can no longer be seen.
“#Ukraine: A Russian T-90M tank was destroyed by Ukrainian forces in the forests around #Kreminna, Luhansk Oblast,” Ukraine Weapons Tracker writes.
The T-90M tank is a third-generation main battle tank manufactured in Russia, introduced in 2016.
Besides the T-14 Armata, which may or not be serving in Ukraine and has not been built in large numbers, many experts consider it Russia’s best tank in wide usage.
Russia Low On Ammo
According to U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, Russia has now lost as many as half of its tanks deployed to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. Of course, estimates very based on the source and how data was collected.
Speaking at an event hosted by the Council of Foreign Relations think tank a few months ago, Adeyemo also said that Western sanctions are making it extremely difficult for Russia to replace advanced weapons lost in the war.
According to Adeyemo, the sanctions have “degraded Russia’s ability to replace more than 9,000 pieces of military equipment lost since the start of the war, forced production shutdowns at key defense facilities, and caused shortages of essential components for tanks and aircraft production.”
Adeyemo also said that Russia is “running out of munitions” and has become dependent on “mothballed Soviet-era weapons.”
The U.S. official’s claims are backed by a report from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) which estimated that roughly 40% of Russia’s prewar tank fleet had been lost in Ukraine after the first nine months of conflict, with that figure rising to 50% for some of the most important tanks used on the battlefield.
According to John Chipman, the chairman of the IISS, Russia’s performance in Ukraine raised questions about the competence of the country’s military as well as its senior military leadership.
#Ukraine: A Russian T-90M tank was destroyed by Ukrainian forces in the forests around #Kreminna, Luhansk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/wr97AT1PVT
— ???????? Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) February 22, 2023
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
