The Ukraine War has redefined international politics and security in ways that, even as the conflict enters its third year, people do not fully yet understand. Weapons systems and tactics that were once considered the sine qua non of modern warfare have been shown to be useless in the current war while systems, such asunmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are employed by both sides in ways that they have not been used before. The use of drones as well as dual-warhead anti-tank weapons have redefined the role of armor in modern warfare.

There are two systems, one belonging to the Russians and the other to the Ukrainians (as provided to Ukraine by NATO) that are important, radical anti-tank weapons. For Russia, the Kornet anti-tank guided missile system. As for Ukraine, the Javelin anti-tank missile system The Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) used by both sides in the war have been utterly eviscerated by weapons, such as the Kornets or the Javelin. While both Ukrainian and Russian Armed Forces have adapted to the presence of these weapons, they continue to make a very violent and bloody mark on the Armed Forces of both countries.

Indeed, many have written off the tank as a viable weapon in this war (and possibly future wars). While such a sweeping judgement is likely extreme, it’s important to understand the significance of these weapons. 

The Javelin

This weapon is one of NATO’s best systems that was given over to Ukraine’s military even before the Ukraine War erupted in February 2022. It was developed as a joint venture between American defense firms Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Javelins have been in full-rate production since 1994. 

The weapon has a range of anywhere between 65-4,000 meters. It fires a tandem-shaped charge, multipurpose warhead and the weapon itself weighs about 34.1 pounds. In other words, this is a relatively mobile system on the battlefield. Javelins operate according to the “fire-and-forget” model allowing for the missile to guide itself to the target. 

Meanwhile, the missile is ejected from the launcher before it ignites its rocket motors, allowing for the operator to avoid being injured from the rocket’s backblast. 

Javelins can be driven into battle on wheels or with tracked vehicles or they can be transported amphibiously. They’re also all-weather weapons and operate just as well at night as they do in the daytime. Smoke and fog tend to interfere with the effective operation of this weapon when it’s fired. 

Ukrainian frontline forces refer to the weapon as “Saint Javelin.” Forbes explained that the tandem-warhead ensures that “every hit is a kill.” While information about the war remains sketchy, US officials have claimed that 300 Javelins destroyed 280 vehicles (so, roughly 93 percent of all Russian vehicles destroyed in the war were obliterated by Javelins).

The Kornet “Tank-Killer”

Russia is not without its own capability to threaten Ukrainian tanks. The 9M133 Kornet is Russia’s top anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). It has a range of up to 3.4 miles (or, 6.2 miles in newer variants of this system), and has laser-guided missile features while firing tandem high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds. These rounds are designed specifically to penetrate even modern armor of Western tanks employing Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA). 

Since Russia has long been one of the top weapons exporters in the world, the Kornet has been exported everywhere and served in multiple conflicts, well before the Ukraine War. They’ve been used by combatants in the 2006 Lebanon War, and later, the Syrian Civil War.

First introduced by the Soviet Union in 1988, this weapon was meant to fight NATO for control over Europe when the Cold War turned hot. 

The Kornet has a Semi-Automatic Command to Line-of-Sight laser beam-riding guidance system. For the weapon to be effective in war, a Kornet operators had to maintain line-of-sight on the target for the duration of the missile’s flight, allowing for significant accuracy when compared to some other anti-tank weapons. The Kornet has been used with great effectiveness against Ukraine’s polyglot fleet of MBTs. Unlike Russia, which uses only Russian-produced systems, the Ukrainians have been gifted scores of Western MBTs that are supposedly better and more advanced than the Soviet-era tanks that Ukraine had from before the war.

As I’ve written elsewhere, ironically, the older platforms, such as the ancient Soviet T-64 and the T-84 Oplothave performed far better than have the newer tanks given to Ukraine by NATO. Indeed, the Kornet has been used to obliterated an astonishing 20 of the 31 M1 Abrams tanks that the Americans gave over to Ukraine last year. Essentially, the Western tanks are poorly defended against both Russian Kornet anti-tank systems and their drones. In the case of the Abrams tanks, the Kornet dual-warhead missiles strike the side of the Abrams tanks, passing through its armor, and destroying the tank.

One confirmed kill of the British Challenger-2 MBT has been made by the Kornet system with Russian claiming to have recently gotten another one. The Kornet was first developed in 1988 and was meant to be used against NATO for when the Cold War in Europe turned hot. The Kornet’s ten-pound dual-warhead penetrates over 1,000 mm of armor. These things are killers.

Who Wins?

While the Ukrainians have gotten an impressive kill ratio with the NATO-provided Javelin anti-tank system, the Kornet has proven to be equally decisive for Russian forces. The key difference remains who has the overall advantage in the war of attrition that is being waged for control over Ukraine. While Russia certainly has its problems, and has taken a staggering number of losses, in historical terms, the Russian losses are nowhere near what they were during Russia’s last “existential” war, what Russian leaders refer to as the “Great Patriotic War,” or World War II as it’s known here in the West. 

Ukraine cannot afford to lose a single troop of piece of military equipment—especially tanks—at this point. So, each kill Russia’s Kornet missile system makes is infinitely more impactful than are the kills that the Javelins make.

In fact, Ukraine likely inspired the Russians to begin prioritizing their own anti-tank missile and drone systems as part of the war. Now, the Russians are fully adapted and pressing on. Ukraine cannot possibly withstand much of this. 

Thus, the Kornet and the force wielding it has the upper hand. Overall, both the Javelin and Kornet anti-tank systems, two relatively old platforms from the Cold War era, have proven to be more effective in combat than more expensive and complex platforms. That’s the real story of the Ukraine War.

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon