Where are the tank brigades of the Ukrainian army now?
Ukraine's 1st Tank Brigade has been renamed the "Heavy Brigade"; the Ukrainian army has five tank brigades in total, but where are the units now?
Báo Khoa học và Đời sống•13/07/2025
Observing the Russia-Ukraine conflict, many experts believe that tanks are "useless" in this war. This can be clearly seen from a series of battlefield videos from both sides showing that tanks are regularly destroyed, even new footage of destroyed tanks is released every day. Therefore, there is a view that tanks have lost their battlefield value and are no longer important; but in fact, this is not the case. Although the survival rate of tanks on the battlefield has decreased, it does not mean that they have lost their useful value. Compared to other land warfare weapons, tanks are still "not easily destroyed".
The seemingly contradictory statements of "tanks are too easy to hit" and "not easy to hit" are actually a difference between perception and reality. The difficulty of destroying tanks and light armored vehicles is not on the same level, and the attack power and firepower of tanks cannot be compared with armored vehicles. Simply put, in the context of the current fierce positional war between Russia and Ukraine, tanks are still the sharpest weapon for attack and also the most important weapon for counterattack and defense. The fact that a unit is equipped with tanks has a great influence on the combat effectiveness and fighting spirit of the soldiers. Therefore, Ukraine continues to request more tank support from the West, including batches of Leopard 2A4s provided by European countries, M1A1s provided by Australia, and Leopard 1A5 tanks refurbished by European countries, as well as AMX-10RCs purchased from France…. All Ukrainian brigades are "fascinated" by these tanks, and all hope to be equipped with more. Therefore, as to whether tanks are useful or not, the answer in the Ukrainian army (AFU) is clear - if a brigade is equipped with a tank company, it will be positively accepted without exception, and no one will say that tanks are useless. It is precisely because the tank resources have been "exhausted" that the AFU was forced to reform the organization of tank brigades. Before the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the Ukrainian army had two active tank brigades (the 1st and 17th tank brigades), and after the outbreak of the war, the 3rd, 4th and 5th reserve tank brigades were formed. These were purely tank brigades, organized on the model of the former Soviet army, and were called strategic reserve tank units.
Among them, the 1st to 4th tank brigades were deployed directly to the front line, while the 5th tank brigade served as a "training unit". And after each training period, the tank battalions and companies of this brigade were transferred to combat units. Only when the brigade was fully equipped with Leopard 1A5 tanks was the unit sent into combat as a complete organization. However, when the infantry brigades, mechanized infantry, marines, and even airborne units of the AFU have only a few tanks, or even none at all, the full participation of the 5th Tank Brigade in combat will certainly become “unreasonable”. As a result, the 5th Tank Brigade's tanks were "split into sevens", reinforced or assigned to other combat units. For example, some tanks were assigned to the 68th Jager Brigade, while the 5th Tank Brigade was reinforced with infantry and converted into a "heavy mechanized brigade". Prior to the 5th Tank Brigade, the AFU's 17th Tank Brigade was also transformed into a heavy mechanized brigade. The number of tank battalions in this heavy brigade was reduced to two (previously five), but there were also two mechanized infantry battalions and two infantry battalions; equivalent to a reinforced mechanized infantry brigade.
The 1st Tank Brigade, which successfully held off the Russian Army Group Center's attack on Chernigov early in the war, has also recently been transformed into a heavy brigade. The remaining 3rd and 4th Tank Brigades are likely to undergo similar reforms in the near future. As a result, the AFU essentially has no pure tank brigades. Due to the shortage of tanks and the actual needs of the battlefield, tank brigades are gradually transforming into a mixed unit, more suitable for actual combat needs. Of course, the actual number of tanks that these tank brigades possess is much less than the total of more than 100 when they were called “tank brigades”. So even after the reform, the actual number of tanks in service with these brigades will not be too many. Therefore, the existing AFU tanks are mainly equipped for units that are in more urgent need, such as the newly formed AFU combat units, such as the 33rd, 225th and 425th Infantry Brigades. In fact, it is necessary to increase the tank firepower of these units to carry out combat missions.
Currently, these units undertake major offensive missions, but are only equipped with about a company of M2A2 infantry fighting vehicles, instead of tanks. Now they have access to more tanks, and their combat power will naturally improve significantly. (photo source: Military Review, Ukrinform, Kyiv Post).
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