Ukrainian Defense Forces Repel Mechanized Assault with Non-Standard Mining Tactic

The 59th Separate Motorized Brigade “Yakiv Handziuk,” in collaboration with the 21st Special Purpose Battalion (Presidential Brigade), successfully repelled a mechanized assault by the invaders in the Donetsk region.

According to Andrii Serhan, a soldier in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Defense Forces employed a non-standard mining tactic to achieve this outcome.

Only three of the seven Russian vehicles that participated in the assault managed to escape, the fighter said.

During the battle, the enemy’s main tank, which was equipped with a modern Russian TMT-K trawl, hit a mine. This led to the halt of the assault convoy and its subsequent destruction.

OSINT analytics identified the scene as the southwestern outskirts of Krasnohorivka settlement.

TMT-K trawl

The TMT-K trawl is a modern Russian anti-mine tank trawl. It was developed as part of the Trotuar R&D program in 2005 by the Stankomash enterprise.

The TMT-K engineered mine trawl was developed to replace the Soviet-era KMT-7 tracked mine trawl and was put into service in 2007.

Unlike the KMT-7 track mine trawl, the TMT-K engineering mine trawl is equipped with a device for trawling anti-surface mines, a network console for trawling remotely placed mines, cutters for cutting wire lines, and a trawl loading system for trawling mines with explosive fuzes.

The TMT-K provides tracing of anti-tank anti-track mines, anti-tank mines with non-contact fuzes at a distance of up to 4 m with reliability, and tracing of anti-tank anti-board mines at a distance of up to 100 m with 100% reliability.

The new trawl also provides for emergency unhitching of equipment, transferring the stubble cutters from the stowage position to the working position, loading the working rollers, and marking a passage in the minefield without the crew leaving the vehicle.

The trawl was designed to withstand 4 TM-62 or 10 TM-57 mines. But it couldn’t withstand the non-standard mining by the Armed Forces of Ukraine that disabled the tank.

In January 2024, it was reported that Ukrainian tanks are being equipped with newly designed trawls.