Russian military destroys Leopard in Ukraine – media (VIDEO)
The tank was spotted near the village of Pisarevka in the north-eastern Ukrainian region during a reconnaissance flight carried out by the Russian military, the statement said. The operator then decided to strike the armor in a 'weak spot' located under its turret, the ministry added.
A short clip from a first-person view (FPV) drone's camera was published by RIA. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flies at a low altitude over a dirt road going through a village, before spotting the Leopard 2A6 pulling into the road, and swiftly zeroing in on it.
Russian troops entered Sumy Region earlier this year, after ending a short-lived Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Region, which began last August. Moscow seeks to create a 'buffer zone' in the area in order to protect the national border from attacks. According to President Vladimir Putin, it is already 10-12km deep.
On Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the successful retrieval of another German-made Leopard 2A6 tank from a battlefield. The tank had been hit by a FPV drone this past winter in a strike that damaged its track drive, the ministry said. It was abandoned by its crew in Russia's Kursk Region and remained there after its liberation. According to the statement, the tank had 'almost a full ammunition load' and received 'no critical damage.'
In May, the Russian defense manufacturer Rostec stated that German-made Leopard 2A6 tanks were ill-suited for modern warfare. 'The survivability of the tank may be insufficient… amid attacks from various directions with drones and modern man-portable missiles,' the tech giant said at the time.
In April, German media reported, citing a deputy military attaché in Berlin's embassy in Kiev, that the Ukrainian military had complained that Leopard 2A6s were expensive to maintain and nearly impossible to repair on the battlefield.
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