Russia’s 1950s tanks are massing for Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian drones are killing them in their sheds.

Dialing up the pressure on Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian 225th Assault Regiment is flying tiny explosive drones into buildings in search of Russian armored vehicles.

The goal: to knock out the vehicles before the Russians can deploy them for a fresh push toward Zaporizhzhia city, 75 km to the west of the disputed gray zone threading south from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast through Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

The vehicles the Ukrainian drones operators are finding and destroying in their indoor shelters are some of the oldest and weirdest in Russia's 50-month wider war on Ukraine. Blasting awkwardly up-armored T-55 tanks from the 1950s, the Ukrainians are discovering just how poorly equipped some of the Russian regiments and brigades in the southeast actually are.

That the Russian 5th and 36th Combined Arms Armies in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts ride in geriatric T-55s among other aged vehicles doesn't mean the CAAs—part of the Eastern Group of Forces—can't advance toward Zaporizhzhia. It does mean they may struggle. Especially given the increasing density of Ukrainian drones and other defenses in the area.

A recent montage of first-person-view drone strikes, circulated by the 225th Assault Regiment, depicts regimental FPV pilots deftly maneuvering through narrow gaps between the walls and roofs of sheds, garages and warehouses somewhere in the regiment's sector, which stretches between the Ukrainian base in Verkhnia Tersa and the Russian base in Zelene, 8 km to the east. The logistical hub of Huliaipole, captured by the Russians back in December, lies a few kilometers to the south.

Bad armor

In the montage, the drone operators find and strike at least three T-55s with add-on anti-drone armor. Not good add-on anti-drone armor, the likes of which you can see on the heavily up-armored T-72 "giga turtle" tanks belonging to the Russian 4th Motor Rifle Brigade, which fights around the Ukrainian stronghold of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast.

Where the T-72 giga turtles boast layers of blast-absorbing sheet metal buttressed by drone-blocking spines, at least one of the 35-ton, four-person T-55s the 225th Assault Regiment blew up sported a layer of discarded ammunition canisters that almost certainly offer very little protection from an FPV drone. Especially one with a shaped-charge warhead that can punch right through the outermost layer of armor on most vehicles.

Lackluster equipment isn't the only thing holding back the 5th and 36th CAAs in southeastern Ukraine. In early February, Elon Musk's Starlink bricked thousands of stolen or smuggled satellite communications terminals that Russian forces relied on for front-line command and control. Ukrainian forces in the southeast took advantage of the ensuing chaos, and counterattacked along a 30-km front between Huliaipole in the south and Ternove in the north.

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The Russians fell back. In a heady two months, Ukrainian troops liberated a couple of hundred square kilometers of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. As they scrambled to restore their communications, the Russians also rushed a clutch of marine brigades and other reinforcements to the area.

Today "the Huliaipole direction remains one of the most challenging for the Armed Forces of Ukraine," Ukrainian drone operator and analyst Kriegsforscher reported. "The Russians have deployed three naval infantry divisions (brigade strength) to this area, significantly enhancing the offensive capabilities of the East[ern] Group of Forces. The situation will likely deteriorate in the future, including an increase in assaults with armor."

The 225th Assault Regiment and adjacent Ukrainian units aren't just sitting around waiting for the coming Russian offensive. They're hunting down that Russian armor before it can roll into action. Armor that includes some very old, weirdly up-armored T-55s.