Tanks in Ukraine 2022

by Mark Galeotti, Felipe Rodriguez (Illustrator)

Overview

A world-renowned expert offers a focused, illustrated account of how Russian and Ukrainian armour fought during the crucial year of 2022, prior to the arrival of Western tanks.

The invasion of Ukraine has seen full-scale mechanized warfare return to Europe. While Western armour and training has been a major part of Ukraine's army since 2023, in the first year of the war both the Russian invaders and the Ukrainians fought using their existing mechanized armies, in the most devastating and high-stakes war in decades. That year, Moscow's latest tanks (bar the still undeployable T-14 Armata) found themselves engaging Ukraine's modernized and customized Soviet-era tank fleet.

World-renowned Russia specialist Mark Galeotti draws on rare Russian and Ukrainian sources to present a definitive account of the Russian and Ukrainian tanks that fought that year, before the first Western tanks arrived. He explores the rival tank armies, how they were used, and the ways they were modified in response to the emerging challenges of the war, and presents the reader with ORBATs and data on deployments new to the English-speaking world.

As the war in Ukraine revolutionizes our understanding of modern warfare, this book offers an expert assessment of how Ukrainian tanks fought the Russians to a standstill in 2022, and how the lessons learned affected the course of the war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472866189
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	07/15/2025
Series:	New Vanguard , #341
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	714,304
Product dimensions:	7.24(w) x 9.76(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mark Galeotti is a scholar of Russian security affairs with a career spanning academia, government service and business, a prolific author and frequent media commentator. He heads the Mayak Intelligence consultancy and is an Honorary Professor at University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies as well as holding fellowships with RUSI, the Council on Geostrategy and the Institute of International Relations Prague. He has been Head of History at Keele University, Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a Visiting Professor at Rutgers-Newark, Charles University (Prague) and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He is the author of over 25 books including A Short History of Russia (Penguin, 2021) and The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War (Yale University Press, 2022).

Felipe Rodríguez Náñez (aka Felipe Rodna) lives with his wife and two sons in Salamanca, Spain, where he works as an architect and computer graphics artist. He combines his experience in CG art and his passion for modelling in his illustrations, where he looks for a good balance between technical detail and craft.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE UKRAINIAN TANK FORCES BEFORE THE INVASION

· Production and inventory

· T-64BM Bulat/T-64BV

· T-80UD

· T-84 Oplot

THE RUSSIAN TANK FORCES BEFORE THE INVASION

· T-72

· T-80

· T-90

ARMOURED CLASHES, 2022

· The 'Kyiv Convoy' (February/March)

· The battle of Volnovakha (February/March)

· The harrowing of the 4th Guards Tank Division (September)

REINFORCEMENTS AND REFURBISHMENTS

· T-72 variants

· M-55S

· Captured tanks

· Field modifications

SUPPORTING THE TANKS

LESSONS OF 2022

· 1. Mass still matters

· 2. See it, kill it

· 3. Tank fights are often knife fights

· 4. The drone is unavoidable

· 5. Survivability and recovery count

· 6. The tank is not dead yet

INDEX