There was a time, not too long ago, when the T-64BM Bulat was Ukraine’s most modern tank. But times have changed. And now the survivors of the 100 pre-war Bulats have trickled down to some of Ukraine’s least active brigades.

The fate of the surviving Bulats speaks to the Ukrainian tank corps’ huge leap in capability in just the 43 months since Russia widened its war on Ukraine. But it also speaks to a shortage of working tanks in the Ukrainian inventory as Ukraine’s roughly 130 ground combat brigades reorganize into a new corps structure, with multiple brigades—each with thousands of troops and potentially dozens of tanks—under a single command.

A photo that circulated online recently depicts a war-weary Bulat in training with the 118th Territorial Defense Brigade. The brigade is holding the line outside Mala Tokmachka in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast, a comparatively quiet sector despite a few recent Russian assaults.

The 49-ton, three-person T-64BM was, until recently, the ultimate T-64—and the best tank in the Ukrainian inventory. The Ukrainian army went to war in 2022 with around 100 Bulats, many if not most of them in service with the elite 1st Tank Brigade.

Two years later, the 1st Tank Brigade had switched to the latest T-64BV, which is several tons lighter than the T-64BM and has newer and much better optics. The 70 or remaining Bulats—a couple dozen have been lost in action—apparently cascaded to the 109th and 118th Territorial Brigades.

The switch makes sense. When the Malyshev tank factory in Kharkiv designed the Bulat back in the 1990s, it added features such as improved armor and fire controls, but didn’t add enough engine horsepower to compensate for the resulting extra weight. “It proved too heavy,” one expert wrote about the Bulat. “There were also problems with air intake and filters.”

There’s some speculation that the Bulats are also badly in need of an overhaul. In any event, by 2025, the Bulat would no longer be Ukraine’s best tank. Ukraine’s super-upgraded T-64BVs have been joined by ex-German Leopard 2s and ex-American M-1s, among other tanks.

Lighter brigades

Territorial brigades tend to be less well-equipped than army, air assault, marine, and assault brigades and tend to fight defensively rather than lead offensive operations.

So it should come as no surprise that, for example, the assault branch’s 425th Assault Regiment operates American-made M-1s donated by Australia, but the territorials operate overweight, underpowered Bulats and ex-Croatian M-84s based on downgraded Soviet-made T-72Ms.

The Bulats are probably adequate for brigades that aren’t expected to use their tanks especially aggressively. Ideally, the territorials would operate the same tanks as the other ground combat branches. At present, that’s not really an option.

Ukraine had around 1,000 tanks when Russia widened the war in February 2022. In 43 months of hard fighting, the Ukrainians have lost around 1,000 tanks but have gotten another 1,000 tanks from their foreign allies. Wear and tear has removed hundreds of otherwise intact tanks from the active rolls, however.

Bottom line: Ukraine is low on tanks.

The ground forces’ reorganization into an 18-corps structure hasn’t solved the problem. As part of the reorganization, all five army tank brigades plus 13 other brigades—including several territorial brigades—are transforming into heavy mechanized brigades, one for each corps.

Each heavy mech brigade should have two tank battalions together operating around 60 tanks. That’s fewer tanks than were in the old tank brigades, but more tanks than were in old territorial or mechanized brigades.

The corps reorg hasn’t decreased overall demand for tanks, which Ukrainian formations count on to help compensate for a force-wide shortage of trained infantry.

The Bulats might be too heavy and too tired to lead Ukraine’s armored counterattacks. But they’re better than nothing for a couple of territorial brigades.