Moscow’s troops have destroyed the first US-made M1 Abrams main battle tank supplied to Kiev’s forces amid the Ukraine conflict, multiple Russian Telegram channels reported on Monday.
Footage circulating online purports to show the vehicle with a large column of fire rising from its turret. It was reportedly targeted by a FPV suicide drone and sustained at least one hit from a shoulder-mounted anti-tank grenade launcher.
The tank was reportedly hit near the village of Berdychi, located to the northwest of Avdeevka, a key Donbass town recently liberated by Russian forces.
A close-up of the destroyed Abrams taken by a surveillance drone shows the vehicle’s ammunition compartment burned-out, with the engine compartment on fire.
Washington pledged to supply Ukraine with 31 M1 Abrams tanks in January 2022, ahead of Kiev’s long-hyped yet ultimately botched counteroffensive. However, they were fully delivered only by mid-October and have seemingly been kept away from the frontline, being featured only in propaganda videos.
The Ukrainian Abrams have seen actual combat only over the past few days, ending up deployed to the battlefield to bolster Kiev’s effort to stop the westward advance of Russian troops following the fall of Avdeevka, formerly a major Ukrainian stronghold in Donbass and one of the key staging points for indiscriminate artillery and rocket attacks on the city of Donetsk.