A new video shows two crew members from Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade describing how they overwhelmed a Russian T-90M tank using just a US-supplied Bradley fighting vehicle.
Two videos recently went viral showing different angles of the battle, which the Defense Ministry of Ukraine said took place in Stepove, a village outside Avdiivka in northeastern Ukraine.
The videos show the T-90M taking heavy fire from the Bradley’s 25mm chain gun. Russian President Vladimir Putin once touted the heavily armored tank as “the world’s best.”
A Ukrainian TV channel interviewed the two members of the Bradley crew, the commander and gunner Serhiy and driver Oleksandr, who were on their second mission together.
“We fired with all we could,” Serhiy said in the interview, per subtitles added by X account @wartranslated. “At first, with anti-armor. And then we started having issues.”
A more personal and detailed interview with the crew of the Ukrainian Bradley which took on a russian T-90M. Also goes over using American-supplied Bradley IFVs in conditions of the Ukrainian winter 💪 pic.twitter.com/GtSGt8Cxiq
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) January 19, 2024
Serhiy described having “anti-armor” issues but did not elaborate on what those were. The X account speculated that they had problems with their armor-piercing ammunition.
The commander compared operating the Bradley vehicle to playing a video game and said this helped him plan how and where to hit the tank.
He said he had to stop the tank “at any cost” and started “blinding” the vehicle with rounds so it couldn’t leave, with a Forbes report elaborating that the team targeted the tank’s optics.
The rounds triggered some of the tank’s explosive reactive armor, destroying the optics, Forbes said.
After being hammered by repeated bursts of the Bradley’s one-pound shells, a video shows the tank spinning out of control and rolling into a tree.
There are three things you can watch forever. Like this Ukrainian M2 Bradley IFV obliterating a «no-analogue» russian T-90M tank.
📹: 47th Mechanized Brigade pic.twitter.com/4NwvEryE3Y
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 18, 2024
The battle was a remarkable victory for Ukrainian forces, as the T-90M, with its heavy armor, would typically easily outmatch a Bradley fighting vehicle.
The Bradley crew had gone to support infantry, and it was only the pair’s second assignment together, as Serhiy had just returned from training in Germany in December.
Serhiy said that he had hoped he would never see a tank that close up.
“The heart properly went off,” Serhiy said, describing his nerves. “I can’t express what it means to see a tank in the sights.”
Serhiy said that another Bradley had gone before them, but “it didn’t work out, so we had to muster up the courage and go.” He did not elaborate on what had happened with the first crew.
The driver, Oleksandr, said these missions are risky and often “very scary.”
Russians ‘fear’ the Bradley
Before becoming a Bradley driver, Oleksandr had been driving a regular car in the Supply Battalion.
Serhiy had been part of an assault team in the Zaporizhzhia direction but trained as a Bradley commander after suffering health issues.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Russian soldiers are “afraid” of facing US-supplied Bradley fighting vehicles.
A Ukrainian soldier, with the call sign of “Kach,” said that Russian troops in tanks and troop carriers fear going into battle against the tracked armored fighting vehicles.
The Bradley is fast and “very maneuverable” and protects soldiers with its heavy armor, Kach told Newsweek. The Ukrainian commander also praised its “powerful machine gun.”