Drones struck the Likhovskoy railway area in Russia’s Rostov oblast overnight on 9-10 November, according to Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+. The strike reportedly hit infrastructure near the Likhaya railway station, which sits less than 20 kilometers from the border of occupied Luhansk Oblast and roughly 180 kilometers from the front line.

New strike hits Likhovskoy rail node

Shortly before midnight on 9 November, Exilenova+ published a video of the strike that appeared to show a nighttime explosion near the rail junction in Likhovskoy, a settlement located along the North Caucasus Railway between Moscow and Rostov-on-Don. The footage, filmed from one of the tracks of Likaya station with a locomotive visible on the tracks, captured the distinct sound of a moped-like drone engine followed by two explosions in quick succession. Both blasts occurred in the same area near the station, producing adjacent fireballs. The exact target and the extent of the damage remain unclear.

Militarnyi reports that the area includes a fuel tank farm belonging to the company RN-Rostovnefteprodukt, known as the Likhovskaya oil depot. Its total fuel storage capacity is estimated at 26,400 m³.

Militarnyi suggested the oil depot may have been the intended target, citing its proximity to the blast and visible damage in the shared footage. Coordinates of the depot were also listed: 48.1451255, 40.1594278.

However, Petro Andriushchenko, the head of the Center for the Study of Occupation NGO, said the strike likely hit a traction substation and a control post at the rail facility.

Andriushchenko noted that the attack was the third drone strike on the same site, following previous attacks on 19 July and 2 August.

Russian crews complain that hefty, improvised armor shells break the transmission on their tanks after just a few kilometers. 

According to interview excerpts posted by Russian tank historian Andrei Tarasenko, mounting this “tsar mangal” style turtle armor on the tank’s chassis quickly overloads the gearboxes. 

One Russian tank “didn't even make it 10 kilometers before one of the side gearboxes failed,” an interviewee told Russian outlet Vault8. This tank was equipped with a makeshift shell made out of cables.  

If the armor shell is instead mounted on the turret, the weight burns out the driver, making the turret impossible to rotate, especially by hand. 

Ukrainian tank operators from the 13th Khartia Brigade confirmed the Russians’ woes to Euromaidan Press.

Passing along his colleagues’ words, Khartia spokesman Volodymyr Dehtiaryov said that improvised armor that weighs several tons does take Russian tanks out of order quickly.

However, he added that the Russians don’t seem to mind losing tanks in this way, as long as they are able to get close enough to inflict enough damage to Ukrainian positions. 

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According to Tarasenko’s post, the Russians are also complaining about shortages of reactive armor, especially the modern Relikt system. Russian crews are trying to make up for the shortage with improvised solutions. 

“On the turret cheeks, there’s a homemade version from garage workshops — sheet metal shaped like factory plating with an explosive insert from the UR-77 mine-clearing line charge. It works about 50/50 at a 45 degree angle,” the Russian crewman is quoted as saying. 

Tanks struggle to evolve in the age of drone warfare

Tanks often lead Russian mechanized assaults, absorbing drone attacks with their bolted-on armor, clearing mines with their front-mounted rollers, and firing their cannons to suppress Ukrainian troops.

This add-on armor comes in a variety of shapes, sizes and weight profiles, evolving over the course of the full-scale invasion from simple cages, to solid steel sheds, to an arrangement of bristling cables, resembling the quills of a porcupine.

There is evidence to suggest that improvised armor is effective at letting the tanks survive more hits from certain types of drones, like FPVs. Some Russian assaults hinge on whether the defenders can run out of drones before the Russians run out of vehicles to overwhelm their positions.

However, the Russians cannot keep sacrificing tanks forever. The Kremlin may be desperate enough for usable armor to pull old T-64s out of storage and try to make them work. Alternatively, the Russians could continue to rely on infantry offensives in the short term, to buy more time for their mechanized forces to recover.

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A Ukrainian defense firm has started producing NATO-standard shells for Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks, using Czech documentation and components. The company, now producing only under 5,000 shells monthly, says it aims to double production capacity and eventually localize up to 80% of manufacturing.

Ukraine begins production of NATO-standard shells for Abrams and Leopard 2

Ukrainian Armor has launched full-scale production of 120 mm ammunition for Western main battle tanks Abrams and Leopard 2, the company told Ukrainian defense news outlet Militarnyi. The company said the production was made possible after receiving technological documentation and a license from the Czech-based Czechoslovak Group (CSG), which also supplies key components such as propellant charges, detonators, and initiators.

According to CSG, they do not own any facilities or production technology in Ukraine, but benefit from the project via licensing fees and by supplying critical elements.

“We are proud to be one of the first Western companies to successfully transfer large-caliber ammunition production to Ukraine,” said David Chour, Deputy Chairman of the Board at CSG.

Ukrainian Armor manufactures the projectile bodies locally, handles the filling and final assembly, and conducts testing. The company confirmed that the plant was completed in early 2025 and production began almost immediately.

CSG has developed its own line of 120 mm tank shells compatible with Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks, which use NATO-standard smoothbore guns such as the Rheinmetall L/44 and L/55. The Ukrainian plant currently has the capacity to produce 4,800 of these 120 mm shells per month.

Artillery shells

In its first year of cooperation with CSG, Ukrainian Armor says it plans to produce up to 100,000 artillery rounds of 155 mm caliber and 50,000 rounds of 105 mm caliber. In the future, it aims to double these figures and ultimately reach 300,000 shells per year, according to Militarnyi.

In addition to NATO-standard shells, the Ukrainian company continues producing Soviet-standard 152 mm and 122 mm rounds in parallel.

The Kremlin spent much of this year to stockpiling and adding protection to tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other armor. And then, in early October, these vehicles attacked.

First, they attacked in the east around Pokrovsk and in the south around Mala Tokmachka. Then, on Thursday, they rolled out along a third front—near Siversk in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast.

It was a costly failure. But the next mechanized assault on Siversk might work.

Russian regiments and brigades east of Siversk, possibly including the 6th and 7th Motor Rifle Regiments, mustered a large for the daytime attack, including: a tank, three IFVs, three all-terrain vehicles and around 20 motorcycles.

The up-armored "turtle tank," wrapped in a metal shell of add-on anti-drone armor, led the way—and the similarly up-armored IFVs trailed behind. The tank, fitted with a front-mounted mine-roller, safely detonated several mines and shrugged off more than a few explosive first-person-view drones as it rolled west.

But more drones were waiting. After absorbing dozens of explosions, the tank finally succumbed to an FPV drone that apparently struck its engine compartment, disabling it. The crew bailed out of the burning vehicle, only to fall victim to yet another drone that struck from above.

Russian equipment burned all across the sector. The Ukrainian 54th Mechanized Brigade and 81st Air Assault Brigade claimed they destroyed every single attacking vehicle.

While it's possible a few Russian infantry dismounted and went to ground in the tree line, the assault almost certainly didn't budge the front line.

More metal on the way

Yet. If the Russian mech assaults around Mala Tokmachka and Pokrovsk are any indication, further mech assaults are likely around Siversk.

After repeated attacks, the Russians managed to land infantry in Mala Tokmachka. They've tried several times to get a few tanks and IFVs across the no-man's-land and drop off infantry in the village of Shakhove, which anchors Ukrainian defenses northeast of Pokrovsk.

Letting the infantry attack on bikes or on foot for much of 2025, the Kremlin managed to save up hundreds, if not thousands, of heavy vehicles. It has enough armor in reserve to keep up the mechanized pressure in several directions.

Mechanized assaults are costly because all assaults are costly in this era of drone warfare. But as long as Russia is willing to pay the cost, the mech assaults can work.

Compared to infantry-led attacks, mech attacks "are definitely being faster in terms of advance and capturing the territory," Ukrainian drone operator Kriegsforscher noted.

That's because it might take just one or two drones to destroy a motorcycle or maim an entire infantry squad. But it takes around eight drones, on average, to disable a turtle tank, one Ukrainian drone operator told Ukrainian-American war correspondent David Kirichenko.

Ukrainian brigades might have just a few hundred FPV drones to defend against a single Russian attack. If there are enough attacking Russian vehicles and they can absorb several drones apiece before their crews die or give up, Ukrainian defenders may run out of drones before the Russians run out of vehicles.

That's apparently what happened in Mala Tokmachka. It could also happen in Shakhove. And the Russians clearly aim to achieve the same thing in Siversk: hurling metal and flesh at Ukraine's wall of drones until the drones are all gone.

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Ukraine stops Russian armor—but infiltrators are already inside Pokrovsk

Russia is returning outdated T-62 tanks to service due to mounting equipment losses in its full-scale war against Ukraine and a shortage of modern military equipment, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) said on June 28.

"The key factors limiting the ability to produce modern armored vehicles in Russia are a lack of industrial capacity and a shortage of imported high-tech components," the agency said.

According to HUR, the restoration of T-62 tanks is primarily carried out at a facility in the village of Atamanovka in Russia's far-eastern Zabaykalsky Krai.

Russia transferred 21 T-62 tanks from its eastern military district to the European part of the country, the intel claimed.

HUR said that Russia’s stockpile of Soviet-era tanks from the 1970s is being depleted, while most T-62s are even in worse condition after decades of open-air storage without maintenance.

Some of these tanks can also be used at the front as stationary firing points to reinforce defensive positions.

"Due to a severe shortage of modern main battle tanks such as the T-90M and T-72B3M, the deployment of T-62s is seen as a temporary but necessary measure," the statement read.

Since the start of its full-scale war in February 2022, Russia has lost 10,970 tanks, Ukraine's General Staff said in its latest update on June 28.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify these numbers.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones reportedly strike 4 fighter jets in Russia

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