The tank brigade of the Ukrainian Army remains in name only.

As a country that received the second-highest number of tanks from the Soviet Union after Russia, but up to now, the tank brigades of the Ukrainian army only exist in name.

Before the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) still maintained a traditional heavy armored force, similar to that of the former Soviet army. However, due to the reduced size of the army, the entire AFU had only two tank brigades and one tank battalion on active duty.

In addition, the organization of other AFU combat brigades is mostly composed of tank battalions; some light infantry or mountain units are only tank companies. This situation shows that the AFU armored forces are still based on the traditional organization of the Soviet army.

In addition to these active tank units, Ukraine's reserve forces and domestic arsenals also keep a large number of old tanks in long-term storage (mainly T-64s). After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war (February 2022), Ukraine has successively established the 3rd, 4th and 5th tank brigades as strategic reserves.

At the same time, in many newly formed combat brigades (including those organized according to “NATO standards”), the Ukrainian army maintains tank formations at the battalion or company level. This reflects the continued dependence on tank forces.

Due to the large-scale expansion of the army, a large number of tanks are required. At this time, the supply of Ukrainian tanks is mainly concentrated on the following three sources: First, speeding up the transfer of tanks stored in domestic warehouses. Although their condition and performance are not ideal, as long as they are still usable.

Second, the AFU took advantage of a large number of Russian tanks, abandoned on battlefields such as Sumy and Kharkov in the early days of the war, and put them into service after refurbishment. These tanks were relatively numerous in the early days of the war, but were no longer available later.

And finally, the source of Soviet (or Soviet-style) tanks, supplied by Western countries to Ukraine, to compensate for the shortage of weapons. After eliminating the factor of war losses, the number of AFU tanks in the early days of the war, was still relatively significant.

8. But as the war continued to rage, the AFU's tanks were destroyed at an extremely rapid rate, and the supply capacity of the aforementioned tank sources was limited, leading to the AFU's increasingly depleted tank stock. Faced with this situation, Ukraine began to request the supply of modern Western tanks from its "partners".

By early 2023, Western countries had transferred to Ukraine several tank models, including the German Leopard 2A4/A6, the Swedish Strv-122 (a modified version of the Leopard 2A5 specifically for the Swedish army), the American M1A1, the British Challenger 2, and the French AMX-10RC wheeled battle tank.

Although these Western tanks come in many different models, they are not very numerous. For example, the Leopard 2A4 is about two battalions in size, the Leopard 2A6 is about a half battalion, the Strv-122 is a company, the M1A1 and AMX-10RC are about a battalion, and the Challenger 2 is more than a company.

Because the Western tank models were not uniform and the number was limited, it was not possible to organize a complete brigade with one type of tank; instead, they were directly equipped to the infantry, mechanized infantry, marines, and airborne brigades of the AFU, to serve as assault weapons.

For example, the 21st, 33rd, 47th Mechanized Infantry Brigades, the 37th Marine Brigade, and the 82nd Airborne Assault Brigade are equipped with from 1 company to 1 battalion of Western tanks. Only the 1st Tank Brigade is equipped with a battalion of Leopard 2A4 tanks.

Starting from the summer counteroffensive in 2023, these Western tanks gradually suffered losses and did not achieve the results Ukraine expected. At the same time, as FPV UAVs played an increasingly important role in anti-tank operations, the survivability of Russian and Ukrainian tanks was significantly reduced, and the tank loss rate continued to increase.

For the AFU, the tank situation is much more difficult than for the RFAF, as Russia still has a strong tank production capacity and a larger stockpile of old tanks. Therefore, although the RFAF has lost more tanks than the AFU, the number of tanks available on the front line is often higher than the AFU side.

In addition, since the summer of 2023, as the attacking side, the Russian army can recover tanks damaged on the battlefield, and a significant part of them can be repaired and put back into service. Meanwhile, Ukraine no longer has a source of captured Russian tanks, but its tanks damaged on the battlefield are often confiscated by the RFAF. This further aggravates the AFU's tank shortage.

In the context of the AFU's difficulties, most tank battalions were reduced to tank companies or even tank platoons, and the participation of AFU tanks in combat became difficult. The overall organization and maintenance of the AFU tank brigade gradually became "only nominal". (photo source Sputnik, Kyiv Post, Ukrinform).

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