Why Ukraine Is Losing More Tanks Than Russia

Russia-Ukraine Part 2

2. Russia Shifted from Armoured to Infantry Assaults The risk-to-reward ratio of mechanised assault formations had simply collapsed. By 2025, armoured columns were being engaged 5 to 10 kilometres from the front before reaching Ukrainian lines. Concentrating armour had become a liability.

The Russian response was small-unit infantry infiltration — fire teams of one to five personnel probing for gaps, exploiting breaches, and drawing in reinforcements. This significantly reduced their visually confirmed vehicle losses, with Russian monthly equipment figures falling to just 86 units in September 2025, compared to averages well above 200 during the high-intensity mechanised phases of 2023 and 2024.

This held until autumn, when declining foliage stripped the concealment that made small infantry units hard to detect. Russia began reintroducing mechanised elements — reflected in the sharp 75.6% month-on-month rise in Russian vehicle losses between September and October 2025.

3. Ukrainian Drone Teams Also Prioritise Infantry Targets Ukraine's drone targeting doctrine shifted away from vehicle kills toward explicit manpower attrition by mid-2025. The most prominent advocate was Colonel Yuriy Magyar, commander of the 808th tactical unmanned systems regiment, who publicly called for a statistical approach to infantry targeting. His logic was grounded in recruitment arithmetic: with Russian monthly mobilisation estimated at 25,000 to 30,000 personnel through 2025, sustaining drone attrition of infantry at a rate that matched or exceeded that intake would impose a manpower ceiling on Russian offensive capacity regardless of equipment reserves.

This had measurable downstream effects. Russian vehicle losses fell markedly in summer and early autumn — not solely because Russia fielded less armour, but because Ukrainian drone sorties were increasingly directed at infantry. The tradeof carried risks: deprioritising logistics interdiction meant Russian infantry could still be resupplied even while being attrited at the front. That internal doctrinal tension remained unresolved through the end of 2025.

4. Ukrainian New Tactics — Localised Counterattacks and Combined Arms Experimentation Ukraine has shifted toward deliberate, localised counterattack operations around Kupiansk, Pokrovsk, and the Pokrovske-Huliaipole corridor — not strategic offensives in the 2023 mould, but precision pressure operations designed to disrupt Russian consolidation and contest newly seized terrain.

These packages brought armoured vehicles back into Ukrainian offensive use. Reduced foliage degraded Russian recon concealment, and declining drone efficiency in adverse weather opened windows for armoured manoeuvres that didn't exist in summer. And the same reason why Russia could not rely on foliage, neither could Ukraine. Armoured vehicles are not obsolete, they remain decisive force multipliers when conditions and combined arms integration are correctly applied.

Ukrainian commanders also identified a key weakness in Russian forward units holding newly captured terrain: Starlink was switched off whilst many operated with light armour unsuited to defensive engagement, and didn't have the organic drone capacity or coordination to detect and repel a sudden mechanised thrust. In several documented engagements around Pokrovsk’e, Ukrainian armoured columns moving in after FPV drone ‘swarm’ collaboration on Russian positions. The most tactically significant development here is Ukraine's experimentation with drone swarms as direct force protection for mechanised assaults. Rather than using drone teams reactively, Ukrainian units deployed coordinated swarm packages ahead of and alongside armoured columns — performing route clearance, suppressing Russian FPV operators, and compressing the decision cycle for armoured commanders. Where this combined-arms drone-armour doctrine was applied with sufficient preparation, Ukrainian forces achieved local tactical success at a significantly higher rate than in comparable engagements without drone escort. Whether it can be scaled across a broader frontage remains the defining tactical question heading into 2026 Sources available upon request

Ukrainian losses (main tracker):

Russian losses (for comparison):

Good article documenting similar patterns