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.

About the Author

Mark Galeotti is a scholar of Russian security with a career spanning academia, government 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 and the Institute of International Relations Prague.

He has been 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 and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

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.