A Ukrainian M-2 Fighting Vehicle Sneaked Up On A Russian T-80 Tank at Night—And Hit It With A Missile From A Mile Away

After months of delay imposed by Republican lawmakers, the U.S. Congress finally passed $61 billion in new funding for Ukraine’s war effort on April 23. Pres. Joe Biden signed the bill the next day—and within hours, the Pentagon announced a $1-billion aid package with critical munitions and vehicles for Ukrainian forces.

It’s not for no reason that the package included an unspecified number of M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. The sole Ukrainian army unit that uses the M-2, the 47th Mechanized Brigade, was fighting a desperate defensive action against a much larger Russian force attacking west of the ruins of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine.

Topped off with fresh ammunition and replacement M-2s, the 47th Mechanized Brigade has blunted the Russian offensive. One dramatic engagement, observed from overhead by a Ukrainian drone, shows how.

On Wednesday night, an M-2 gunner spotted a Russian T-80 tank a mile away across a field east of the village of Novopokrovske. The M-2 crew fired a single TOW wire-guided anti-tank missile, which punched through the 43-ton, three-person tank. “Bradley—the tank destroyer,” the Ukrainian defense ministry crowed.

It was one of the longest-range direct tank kills of the Russia-Ukraine war. But it probably came as no surprise to boosters of the iconic Bradley, which has been the U.S. Army’s main fighting vehicle since the 1980s. “The Brad ... is not a tank, but it can be a tank killer,” explained Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general who commanded an M-3, a scout version of the M-2, in Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

The 33-ton, 10-person M-2 might be the best fighting vehicle of Russia’s 27-month wider war on Ukraine. Equipping three 30-vehicle battalions in the elite 47th Mechanized Brigade, the M-2’s primary mission is to haul infantry into battle and then join the fight itself, peppering Russian troops and vehicles with accurate 25-millimeter auto-cannon fire.

The M-2 weighs tens of tons less than a typical tank, mostly because its armor is much thinner than a tank’s armor. In a close fight with a Russian tank, an M-2 might not last long. In a far fight, the M-2’s precision sights and TOW missiles might give it an edge—especially at night, when the Bradley’s superior infrared optics help its crew see the tank before the tank crew sees the Bradley.

The Pentagon expected the Ukrainian army might appreciate the M-2’s tank-killing potential. “The Bradley specifically has formidable anti-armor capabilities that will work against, you know, every kind of armored capability that Russia has fielded in Ukraine,” Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, told reporters last year, shortly after the United States pledged the first batches of M-2s to the Ukrainian war effort—around 200 in all.

Sure enough, between missions supporting the infantry, the 47th Mechanized Brigade deployed M-2s on tank-hunting missions. In a single furious skirmish in southern Ukraine last summer, one Bradley crew reportedly knocked out two Russian T-72 tanks.

The 47th Mechanized Brigade has been in combat non-stop for a year. It has taken a toll on the brigade’s M-2 battalions. The analysts at the open-source intelligence collective Oryx have tallied 37 destroyed Bradleys and dozens of damaged ones. As it fought that Russian offensive west of Avdiivka last month, the brigade was running out of M-2s.

That’s changing as fresh vehicles arrive. Expect to see more M-2s in far fights with Russian tanks as the 47th Mechanized Brigade works to stabilize the front line. “We continue to work!” the brigade stated.