Russia using tanks packed with tonnes of TNT as remote-controlled bombs

Russia's defence ministry says the new tactic was used on Saturday

Drone footage shows the moment a Russian T-55 tank - reportedly packed with tonnes of high explosives - is detonated by remote-control near Ukrainian positions. Source: Telegram/@romanov_92

Russia filled a troop carrier with explosives and drove it towards Ukrainian positions before detonating it, the Kremlin has said

The announcement, carried by state-linked RIA Novosti news agency, comes as drone footage appears to show a Russian T-55 tank used as a remote-controlled, explosive battering ram on Ukrainian defences. Pro-Russian accounts, and the Calibre Obscura defence consultancy, said the tank was carrying six tonnes of TNT.

Russia's defence ministry did not comment on the "suicide tank" attack, but said on Sunday that a captured MT-LB armoured vehicle was used in a separate attack, with the driver jumping out as it rolled towards the Ukrainian trench.

“Servicemen of the engineering and sapper unit of the Central Military District destroyed the stronghold of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by remote detonation of a captured armoured personnel carrier, which was filled with explosives and sent to enemy positions,” RIA Novosti reported on Sunday, citing Ministry of Defence officials.

Several analysts said on Sunday that Russia had used a remote-controlled T-55 tank packed with explosives, which was destroyed using an anti-tank missile.

Drone footage taken on Sunday showed what appeared to be a T-55, which has a distinctive rounded turret, driving towards a tree line before exploding and creating a colossal shock wave.

The blast shown on the drone footage was many times larger than that caused by a normal tank detonation – many of which have been catastrophic because of the explosion of both ammunition and fuel.

Remote-control vehicle bombs

This may not be the first time such a bomb – called a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) by experts – has been used in this way in Ukraine.

In May, a bombing claimed to have been carried out using a remote-controlled troop carrier, appeared on the Twitter account of a pro-Russian war monitor that goes by the name “Don’t Stop War”.

Hugo Kaaman, an expert on vehicle bombs, said in a tweet that Russia had carried out a “failed (likely RC-) VBIED attack” against Kyiv's forces near Svatove, in Ukraine's breakaway enclave of Luhansk.

Mr Kaaman said the vehicle in question was an MT-LB, a turretless troop carrier capable of holding 11 soldiers, which was originally designed in the 1950s.

Russia typically fields more modern armoured personnel carriers, including the BMP series that entered service in the 1960s. The latest variant, the BMP-3, entered service in the late 1980s.

Before these attacks, Ukraine had detonated Gnome Kamikazes, unmanned ground vehicles fitted with TM-62 anti-tank mines.

The tactic dates from the Second World War, when German forces remotely detonated Goliath tracked mines, a series of unmanned ground vehicles carrying powerful explosives.

Soviet-era troop carriers filled with bombs were also frequently used by ISIS and Al Qaeda-linked militants to carry out suicide attacks against Syrian forces during the country’s 12-year civil war.

Reports emerged later of ISIS filling captured US Humvees with bombs.

Syrian and Iraqi forces eventually adapted to the threat by building defensive sand berms and using anti-tank missiles or air support provided by allies to destroy the vehicle bombs.