“Russia withdrew from Kharkiv region”
“Yes, they got their butts whipped.”
It was not only Russia’s biggest battlefield loss since WWII, it was also the complete rout of their Premier tank force, the 1st Guards Tank Army (Guard of Moscow).
The majority of their tanks were abandoned and captured intact by the Ukrainians (Russia remains the biggest single contributor of tanks to the Ukrainian Army, from this defeat).
As the Russian tanks ran out of fuel retreating and were unable to refuel, crews abandoned them, and took cars and bicycles from the locals to keep fleeing.
1st Guards Tank has not been the same since. They reconstituted with a bunch of poorly trained mobniks and old vehicles out of storage, and are now a third rate unit, a shell of its former self.
Can anyone explain why Russians abandoning their tanks
1 seem to leave every hatch open
2 don’t destroy them to keep from capture, esp in Kharkiv goodwill gesture