Here’s How The Russians Are Taking Out Ukraine’s M-1 Abrams Tanks

With reporting by Gabriel Silveira.

Ukraine’s Western-made tanks—Challenger 2s, Leopard 2s and M-1 Abrams—are priority targets for Russian forces. For the obvious operational reasons, of course, but also because every hit on a Western tank makes for tidy piece of propaganda.

Despite being top targets, and also despite Ukraine’s recent shortage of artillery shells—a shortage that has compelled Ukrainian brigades to fight close instead of far—the Ukrainian army so far has lost just three of its 31 American-made M-1s that we can confirm. At least one other Abrams has been damaged.

It’s unclear how many of the crew members—four in each tank—escaped.

At present, Russian anti-tank guided missiles seem to be the main killers of Ukrainian M-1s. If so, that’s a compelling argument for equipping the Abrams with a missile-warning system. But remember: there are lots of other ways to take out tanks.

The 47th Mechanized Brigade is the Ukrainian army’s sole Abrams-operator. The brigade rolled into action north of Avdiivka, the locus of Russia’s winter offensive, late last fall—and the M-1s arrived a short time later, replacing the brigade’s few surviving Leopard 2A6s.

The M-1s have been in the thick of the fighting as the Ukrainians have retreated from the ruins of Avdiivka and established a new defensive line a few miles to the west. There, the 47th Brigade and adjacent units have halted the Russian advance.

The 47th lost its first M-1 on or before Feb. 26, when a Russian first-person-view drone struck the tank’s ammunition compartment and sparked a fire that ultimately destroyed it. It’s possible the blast door that normally would prevent flames from entering the compartment—and cooking off the 120-millimeter main gun ammo—was open at the time of the strike, but it’s hard to say for sure.

The second Abrams got knocked out on or before March 3—this time reportedly by a Kornet laser-guided anti-tank missile that hit the relatively thinly-protected side of the tank’s hull and passed right through the attached M-19 explosive reactive armor. Kornets have tandem warheads: the first charge clears the armor; the second explodes inside the tank.

A second missile struck the turret, followed by an FPV drone, but it was the first missile—and the blaze resulting from its impact—that did in the 69-ton M-1.

The third confirmed Abrams loss, a week after the second, apparently also resulted from an anti-tank missile strike, which sparked a fire that cooked off the main gun rounds in the ammo compartment. The blast doors and the compartment’s exterior blowout panel must have failed.

A laser-detection system may have saved the two Abrams that fell victim to Kornets or similar missiles. But it wouldn’t have prevented the other loss. Nor would it prevent what’s almost certain to happen in the coming weeks and months as the war grinds on and the other 28 M-1s keep fighting: losses to mines, artillery and possibly even other tanks.

The M-1 is a tough tank. But it’s no more invulnerable than any tank is in a war that has eaten more than 6,000 Russian tanks and at least 700 Ukrainian ones. Get used to seeing wrecked and abandoned Abrams in Ukraine.