A tank was destroyed with the same anti-tank weapon that Canada sent to Ukraine in the early days of the invasion.

A drone released by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense this week filmed its forces destroying a Russian T-90M tank in the northeast of the country with a Canadian weapon received as part of military aid.

While the Russian-Ukrainian war has seen hundreds of Russian tanks taken out of combat by Ukrainian forces, the vast majority were old machines dating back to the Cold War era.

The T-90M is different; it entered service only after the fall of the Soviet Union and is generally considered the most advanced tank in the Russian arsenal. Ukraine claims to have destroyed only one other T-90 model so far.

The Ukrainian ambush on the tank was notable because it was not carried out with guided munitions. Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the conflict has been heavily defined by Ukraine's strong reliance on soldier-carried “fire-and-forget” anti-tank missiles.

The most famous of these missiles is the American-made "Javelin FGM-148" missile. The Javelin guides itself to a target using onboard computers, and is particularly deadly as it is designed to hit enemy tanks from above, where their armor is thinner.

But Ukrainian forces confirmed that the fate of the T-90 was decided by a soldier carrying a simple handheld launcher; a weapon whose technology has remained relatively unchanged since World War II.

In an official statement, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense attributed the kill to a shot from a "Carl Gustaf" recoilless rifle, a weapon similar to a bazooka that fires a rocket-propelled grenade.

Due to the difficulty of aiming the weapon, it must be fired from close range. Ukrainian forces may have deliberately chosen the simpler Carl Gustaf due to the fact that the T-90 is specifically equipped with countermeasures designed to confuse the Javelin.

The tank is capable of jamming the infrared sensors of the missile and hiding its image with smoke grenades; both measures that were ineffective against the Carl Gustaf grenade, which simply travels in a straight line until it hits something.

The Carl Gustaf was manufactured in Sweden by the same company that made "Saab" cars. Sweden had already sent several thousand anti-tank weapons to Ukraine in the early weeks of the conflict. Carl Gustaf rifles were also among weapon shipments sent by other countries, including Canada.

Just four days after the Russian invasion, Canada announced its intention to send 100 Carl Gustaf recoilless rifles to Ukraine, along with 2,000 rounds of grenade ammunition.

On April 22, Canada announced that among a shipment of M777 howitzers sent to Ukraine, it also sent the Carl Gustaf, considered one of the cheapest ways in the world to blow up an enemy tank, and is in use by more than 40 armies worldwide.