Ukrainians are riding tanks captured from an elite Russian unit into battle in Bakhmut, but their new gear may not last long

• Ukrainian troops have repurposed an array of gear that Russian forces have left on the battlefield.

• That includes T-80 tanks captured from the 1st Guards Tank Army, an elite Russian armored unit.

• But Russian tanks are designed for Russian forces, and Ukraine might get limited use out of them.

There is poetic justice in the idea that a country under attack is using its adversary's weapons against it.

No wonder Western observers have been thrilled by reports of Ukrainian forces capturing hundreds of Russian tanks and turning them against the invaders. No doubt Western governments were happy, too; the more weapons Ukraine captures for itself, the fewer Western countries may have to send from their own stocks.

Michael Kofman, the director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA, said that the gear Ukraine is repurposing includes tanks that were captured from Russia's elite 1st Guards Tank Army and sent back into Bakhmut, the site of Ukraine and Russia's deadliest fighting.

Kofman spoke at a March 13 event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment and described a recent trip to Bakhmut, where he said that he saw "a reinforcing tank platoon coming in from the Ukrainian side which was entirely made up of Russian T-80s that they had captured from 1st Guards Tank Army at Izyum."

"They were very easily identifiable," Kofman added. "You can see an entire unit composed of nothing but captured Russian tanks."

That the tanks were trophies from a 1st Guards Tank Army defeat must be particularly galling to Moscow. The unit earned fame as a Red Army formation from World War II. It was deactivated in 1998 but reactivated with great fanfare in 2014 as an elite, well-equipped force that became the Russian army's prime ground maneuver unit.

The 1st Guard Tank Army took heavy losses in several battles around Kyiv and Kharkiv when it was deployed in Ukraine — and eventually had to be withdrawn for refitting.

Russian troops have been quite generous with their equipment, leaving an array of hardware, some of it undamaged, for Ukrainian forces to capture.

Living off captured hardware may work for insurgents, but it doesn't work for armies that need advanced weapons for protracted operations, and Ukraine now faces the question of how long these vehicles will be in fighting condition.