Ukraine fits Abrams tank with Russian-style hedgehog armor

Ukrainian forces have begun fitting their own armored vehicles with the same “hedgehog” anti-drone armor that Russian units pioneered last year, according to photos and video circulating from Ukrainian military channels.

The images show a Ukrainian M1 Abrams from the 225th Separate Assault Regiment and a BMP-1TS operated by the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade, both covered in dense frameworks of unraveled steel or aluminum cable.

The armor, known also as “Yozh” (Hedgehog) or “Oduvanchyk” (Dandelion), is built from industrial cabling cut into uniform lengths and unwound into individual wire strands. The strands are bundled and welded onto a metal frame that is then bolted or welded to the vehicle’s hull and turret, producing a bristling covering that can extend a foot or more from the armor underneath.

The design first appeared on Russian tanks in the fall of 2025 and has since spread across the front. Iryna Rybakova, a press officer with Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade, told RFE/RL that the covering is meant “to get drones tangled and not detonate, or detonate at a distance” from the vehicle’s hull. Most first-person-view kamikaze drones carry a fuse that protrudes from the warhead and triggers on impact. The wire strands are intended to snag or deflect a drone before that fuse reaches the armor plate underneath.

Ukrainian drone operator Yevhen, who fights under the call sign “Krym,” described a related mechanism to RFE/RL: when a shaped-charge warhead detonates away from the hull rather than flush against it, the resulting blast jet is less likely to penetrate. He said the same wire covering can also break up a vehicle’s silhouette, making it harder for reconnaissance drones to identify from the air.

Ukrainian troops initially mocked the appearance of Russian hedgehog vehicles, which have been compared to a vehicle “wearing a bulky, badly made wig.” One heavily armored Russian vehicle reportedly absorbed around 25 mine and drone strikes near Siversk before a 26th munition disabled it, according to Euromaidan Press. Despite the criticism, Ukrainian units have adopted the same approach for their own vehicles over the past several months, a pattern that has repeated with earlier Russian innovations such as “cope cage” and “turtle” armor.

Ukraine has fitted the covering to at least one M1 Abrams before. In February, an ex-Australian M1A1 Abrams belonging to Ukrainian forces appeared in Zaporizhzhia Oblast wearing a hedgehog frame of unwound aluminum cabling. That tank was later struck and disabled by a Russian FPV drone while stationary.

The tradeoffs of the armor are well documented on both sides of the front. The added weight strains vehicle gearboxes and drivetrains, and heavily covered vehicles have reportedly become stuck attempting to cross rivers and streams. One Russian tank crew member told a reporter that a hedgehog-equipped tank “didn’t even make it 10 kilometers before one of the drivetrain components failed.” Carlo Masala, a military expert at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, told RFE/RL the broader shift toward this kind of improvised protection “seems to be a new tactic to bring maneuver back into warfare,” as cheap FPV drones have made large armored assaults increasingly costly for both militaries.

The extent of Ukraine’s adoption of hedgehog and dandelion armor across its vehicle fleet has not been disclosed, and neither the 225th Separate Assault Regiment nor the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade has released details on how many vehicles in their formations have received the modification.