Kharkiv counter-offensive turns Russian invasion into equipment graveyard

The Russian attempt to attack Kharkiv has turned into a desperate defence of a few kilometres of terrain littered with wrecked military equipment and more. We present the graveyard of wrecks north of Kharkiv.

In the past few weeks, the Ukrainians, thanks in part to the West's approval of targeting locations within Russian territory, where the entire logistics for invasion forces in this sector had been deployed, have shifted the situation in favour of Ukraine. It is worth noting that Russia has been preparing to open the Kharkiv front since at least early 2024. The capture of this city would have been a significant propaganda victory for Vladimir Putin, but reality has shown the impracticality of these plans.

The Ukrainians have already recaptured a large part of Hlyboke and Vovchansk, and this positive trend may continue in the coming weeks. As a result, fields and roads are left with a substantial number of wrecked Russian tanks, infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), armoured personnel carriers, and even civilian cars. In the footage below, you can see, among other things, a tank from the T-72 family, accompanied by many armoured personnel carriers, BTR-82 and vans UAZ Buchanka.

In the Kharkiv segment, the Russians use older equipment, including tanks like the T-62 used in frontal assaults. There are also a few new machines like the T-90M, so older versions of the T-72 family dominate.

These are more easily destroyed, increasing losses the Russian industry cannot replenish. After exhausting the stock from Soviet-era reserves, Russia faces a collapse.

The war in Ukraine has shown that despite their strong firepower and good mobility combined with frontal solid armour, T-72 tanks turned out to be flawed because any armour penetration has a high chance of causing a spectacular explosion of ammunition storage.

Conversely, in the case of Western machines, for example, the penetration of a cumulative jet into the tank's interior might disable it from combat or cause no damage if there are no significant elements in its path. In each case, the crew usually survives and, enriched with new experiences, can continue fighting in a new tank.

The same applies to armoured personnel carriers, which are defenceless against anything stronger than heavy machine guns of calibre 14 mm. There is no need even to mention civilian vehicles.

FPV drones are most commonly used, but these are not always available. Therefore, artillery plays the biggest role. With the use of, for example, self-guiding anti-tank shells SMArt 155, artillery performs excellently in eliminating enemy tanks.

As it happens, an artillery unit equipped with PZH-2000 howitzers integrated with this type of ammunition has operated in the region for a few weeks, shelling targets even in the Belgorod region in Russia.

Moreover, anti-tank mines deployed by multiple rocket launchers, such as the BM-21 Grad or BM-27 Uragan, or drones, are also very effective. Even if such a mine, for example, only causes the breaking of a track, practice shows that Russian crews quickly abandon their tanks. As a result, graveyards of Russian equipment appear in the offensive directions. Ukrainians often finish these with drones to prevent the Russians from recovering and repairing them.