Russian drone takes out Leopard tank (VIDEO) – RIA

Newly published footage from Ukraine appears to show the destruction of a Leopard 2A6 main battle tank by a Russian Lancet kamikaze drone. The heavy armor is one of the most modern battle tanks sent to Kiev by its Western backers.

Russian forces thwarted an attempt by Ukrainian troops to evacuate the damaged Leopard 2 tank from the battlefield near the city of Avdeevka in Donbass, reported RIA Novosti, which published the video of the strike.

Moscow’s troops only damaged the tank at first, forcing its crew to flee, a source with the Russian military told the news agency. Ukrainian forces then attempted to recover the disabled vehicle using a towing unit. The Russian soldiers, in turn, decided to “destroy it once and for all” and hit it with a Lancet drone, setting its turret on fire.

“Now, it’s hardly reparable anyway,” the source told RIA. A video published by the outlet and apparently taken from two drones, shows the abandoned heavy armor in the middle of a field, with a Russian unmanned aerial vehicle locking on the target and then hitting its right side, causing a small explosion.

Russian forces have regularly published videos of Western military equipment supplied to Kiev being destroyed by drones, artillery, helicopters, and other weapons. Last week, the Russian Unmanned Rapid Response Squad – a unit specializing in using first-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones – published videos showing their unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) destroying three Leopard tanks in just two days.

Forbes reported on Thursday that Kiev had lost “a quarter of its best German-made tanks,” describing Leopard 2s. A list of the destroyed equipment included older Leopard 2A4s, more modern Leopard 2A6s and Swedish Strv 122s, which according to the outlet, are “super-armored Swedish variants” of the German-made tanks.

The Ukrainian military had to write off “at least a dozen, and perhaps 13” such tanks in little over a week, Forbes reported, adding that six more examples were destroyed prior to last week. Ukraine’s Western allies have pledged a total of 85 Leopard 2s and delivered 71 of them to date, the magazine added.

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