Russian tank shoots down attacking drones in war games

A Russian T-90M tank used its Arena-M active protection system to shoot down attacking drones during the Tsentr-2026 strategic exercise, in a staged attack on a tank column at the Chebarkul training range in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region.

In the demonstration, several types of drones, including fixed-wing models and standard first-person-view (FPV) quadcopter drones, simulated a strike on a column of tanks. The T-90M’s onboard system detected and destroyed the incoming drones. The test took place under controlled exercise conditions, and Russia did not say how many drones were launched, how many were intercepted, or whether any got through.

Arena-M is a hard-kill system, meaning it physically destroys threats instead of jamming them. A radar on the tank watches for incoming projectiles, calculates their path and fires a small defensive munition that breaks up the threat with a spray of fragments before it hits the armor. The system was built by the KBM design bureau in Kolomna to stop anti-tank rockets and guided missiles, which fly much faster than drones. The baseline version can intercept projectiles traveling up to 1,000 meters per second.

Small drones are harder for that kind of radar to track. They move slowly, reflect little radar energy and often dive onto the tank from above, where older systems did not look. KBM has worked to close that gap. In 2025, Russia said Arena-M received a software update with a dedicated mode for intercepting drones, and in early 2026 a new variant designed to counter one-way attack drones and loitering munitions completed development.

The system has already been used in combat in Ukraine, where T-72B3A and T-90M tanks fitted with Arena-M have been seen on the front line, Meta-Defense reported. Ukrainian troops have acknowledged that it works. One Ukrainian unit reported that Arena-M on a single Russian T-72B3A tank destroyed seven FPV drones, and that it took 15 to 20 drones to knock out a tank fitted with the system along with cage armor.

That points to the system’s main weakness. Arena-M’s known configuration carries 12 interceptor munitions. Once they are used up, the tank has to rely on its armor, anti-drone cages and electronic warfare, and FPV drones are cheap enough for Ukrainian units to launch in large numbers against a single target.

Arena-M has been fitted to some T-90M, T-72B3 and T-80BVM tanks. Uralvagonzavod first showed a T-90M with the system in February 2025, and photos of production T-90Ms with Arena-M being transported on public roads appeared in July 2026. But a batch of new T-90M and T-72B3M tanks shown leaving the factory in September did not carry the system, suggesting it is not yet standard on every new tank.

Tsentr-2026 ran from Sept. 28 to Oct. 3 and involved more than 47,000 troops, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. President Vladimir Putin visited the Chebarkul range on Oct. 1.