Rare 🇮🇹 B1 Centauro Tank Destroyer Spotted With Ukraine’s 78th Air Assault Brigade

05/26/2026

Rare footage of Ukraine’s Italian B1 Centauro wheeled tank destroyers has surfaced, offering a rare look at a platform seldom seen in public since arriving in Ukrainian service in autumn 2025, according to Army TV on May 22.

The video, released by the Defense Forces’ media platform, showed Centauros operated by Ukraine’s 78th Separate Air Assault Brigade.

Visible modifications on the vehicles include:
– standard anti-drone grille armor;
– a Ukrainian protective “hood” canopy fitted over the turret;
– additional “dandelion”
-type screens layered on top of the factory configuration.

According to crew testimony in the report, the platform’s longest recorded shot in Ukrainian service stands at 11 kilometers, fired from a closed position by a gunner with the call sign “Khilya.” The round reportedly struck a building sheltering Russian troops.

The tank commander, identified by the call sign “Director,” characterized the Centauro’s internal communications system as substantially better than that of Soviet-era T-72 and T-64 tanks operated previously by Ukrainian crews. He attributed the difference in part to the Italian platform’s quieter engine.

“The internal communication here is many times better. On both the ”72” and the ”64,” there were times we couldn’t hear anything—neither outside, nor between ourselves. When the driver can’t hear the commander, that’s a disaster, a terrible disaster, you might as well stand and cry,” he explained.