Ukraine has faced attacks by suicide drones during Russia's war against its sovereignty, and now it faces a new threat: suicide tanks.
The Russian military has been sending outdated Soviet-era tanks into battle by filling the tanks with explosives and launching them against Ukrainian military positions.
In footage posted online a 70-year-old T-54 tank packed with six tons of explosives is deployed against a trench position of Ukrainian soldiers. The tank is stopped when it rolls over a mine and is subsequently destroyed by an anti-tank missile.
Russian media claimed that Ukrainian forces suffered casualties when the explosives in the tank detonated, but this could not be confirmed. Ukrainian soldiers were about 200 feet from the tank when it exploded.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, launching a war that still has no end in sight. The war has caused over 350,000 casualties so far, according to international estimates.
Russia has used Iranian-made suicide drones in attacks on Ukrainian cities, including the capital of Kyiv. The new use of suicide tanks could be seen as an extension of that tactic.
The T-54 tanks were developed following the Second World War and formed the backbone of the Soviet Union's armored divisions beginning in the 1950s. The model is considered useless on the modern battlefield in the functions a tank normally fills, but Russia has found a way to use them by filling the vehicles with explosives and operating them by remote control