Watch: First British Challenger 2 tank destroyed in Ukraine advance

Social media footage appears to show vehicle’s flaming wreckage on side of road but there may be hope of repair for the four-man tank

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A British Challenger 2 tank was destroyed by enemy fire for the first time but saved the lives of its Ukrainian crew, defence sources said on Tuesday.

Footage from the battlefield showed the smouldering wreckage of the tank on a roadside near the Zaporizhzhia village of Robotyne, where Kyiv’s counter-offensive to penetrate Moscow’s defences has gathered pace.

Bright flames could be seen licking up the sides of the tank as a thick plume of black smoke billowed from its turret, in the video purportedly shot by a Ukrainian soldier fleeing an artillery barrage in a car.

Defence sources and experts confirmed the tank was a Challenger 2, but couldn’t establish the extent of damage from the 51-second clip first shared on the Telegram messaging app. They said its four-man crew had likely survived thanks to the British-manufactured tank’s heavy armour and safety features.

Western military vehicles sent to Ukraine have helped save the lives of dozens of Ukrainian soldiers after being hit by Russian fire while taking part in Kyiv’s counter-offensive.

It is not known what exactly hit the Challenger 2, but it is believed to have been struck by Russian artillery round or suicide drone.

The 14 Challenger 2s sent to Ukraine by Britain were attached to Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade, which was thrown into battle in southern Ukraine last month.

The elite brigade, trained and equipped by Britain, has been credited with penetrating the so-called Surovikin line – the network of trenches, tank traps and fortifications defending Russia’s “land bridge” to Crimea.

Geolocated footage recently shared online showed soldiers of the 82nd conducting raids on trenches near the western outskirts of Verbove.

Western analysts say Kyiv is attempting to widen the breach in order to create enough room for a larger mechanised assault on Russian-held southern Ukraine.

Emil Kastehelmi, an open-source intelligence analyst, said Ukraine had moved in a “positive direction” between the settlements of Robotyne and Verbove.

He wrote on Twitter that Kyiv’s troops had “further penetrated the first Surovikin line near Verbove” and were now reaching the main trench line.

“Ukrainian forces are widening the breach they have already made in one Russian defensive layer and are reportedly manoeuvring more equipment and personnel into tactical rear areas of this layer,” the US-based Institute for the Study of War wrote in its daily update.

While its troops have penetrated the first line of defences, there is no evidence Kyiv has been able to move armoured vehicles in the area beyond the anti-tank ditches and concrete dragon’s teeth.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former Challenger 2 tank commander, said the fact Challenger 2s had been brought forward was a sign Ukraine is confident it can soon break through the Russian defences.

The tanks, which a Ukrainian crewman recently compared to a “sniper rifle”, have previously been used sparingly, targeting Russian tanks and armoured vehicles at long range.

The Challenger 2 destroyed in Ukraine was the first confirmed destruction of the British-made tank by enemy action.

The only other time a Challenger 2 had been destroyed on a battlefield was in a friendly-fire incident in Iraq in 2003, when two British soldiers were killed and two others were seriously wounded after the crew of another Challenger 2 opened fire in the dark.

The Challenger 2 is much more heavily armoured than Soviet and Russian-designed tanks.

The British-made vehicles also feature special boxes to prevent ammunition detonating in a strike and fire suppression kits to protect the crew.

Defence sources said a similar strike on a Russian tank there would have been a slim chance of the crew surviving the attack.

The survivability rates of Western tanks compared to Soviet-era equivalents have been hailed by Nato officials.

It was recently reported that just five of the 71 German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks donated to Ukraine have been destroyed in combat after taking part in the initial thrust of Kyiv’s counter-offensive.

British officials are buoyed that its tank has been able to protect its Ukrainian crew, and are not bothered by its destruction.

It is not yet known whether the Challenger 2 will be salvageable, but one source said Ukrainian engineers would at least be able to strip it down for spares because it was hit in territory held by Kyiv.

A surprise Ukrainian offensive

Meanwhile, pro-Russian military bloggers raised the alarm on Tuesday about Ukraine’s surprise offensive in the north-east of Ukraine while both armies appear to have committed most of their forces to the south-east.

They reported a surprise Ukrainian offensive in the area between Novodonetske and Novomayorske, two villages to the north-west and to the south-west of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk.

Alexander Khodakovsky, a pro-Russian separatist commander who has been fighting against the Ukrainian army since 2014, said in a Telegram post on Tuesday the Ukrainian army had been pounding the area with artillery for a few days and has now started to advance.

“The major activity is focused around the village of Novodonetske: the enemy, backed with a large number of armoured vehicles, is trying to break through,” he said.

The Ukrainian artillery had already damaged the mine fields so much that the defence line “is no longer effective”, Mr Khodakovsky, a Donetsk-based senior Ukrainian officer who switched sides in 2014, said.

Ukrainian troops reportedly did not sustain heavy losses and are fighting right next to the Russian positions.

Previously, most of the fighting was concentrated in the south-east of Ukraine, around Orikhiv, in the direction of the cities of Melitopol and Mariupol.

Influential Russian pro-war bloggers backed the reports.

Voenny Osvedomitel, a popular pro-war Telegram channel, said on Tuesday the Ukrainian armed forces “resumed a full-scale offensive” around Novodonetske for the first time in over three months.

“The Ukrainian army had tried to capture this village before at the start of its counter-offensive but it eventually gave up after sustaining heavy losses in troops and weaponry,” Voenny Osvedomitel said.

Ukrainian forces had crossed over the defence line and deployed elite paratroopers, he said.