Some footage confirms the destruction and seizure of many pieces of NATO vehicles by Russian forces.
New footage shot in Ukraine confirms Russian soldiers seize several pieces of heavy equipment recently delivered by NATO member states. The footage shows soldiers operating an American Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and attempting to start the engine of a German Leopard 2A4 tank. The soldiers are discussing how to start the tank’s engine and drive it to their positions; interestingly, the vehicle appears to be completely unharmed and was abandoned by Ukrainian troops.
Another video shows Russian soldiers inspecting a Bradley fighting vehicle in a warehouse, presumably in Russia, and the running vehicle is shown on Russian television. It is known that the first Bradley was delivered to Ukraine in April, and since then they have suffered heavy losses in battles, with more than 50 vehicles lost by the end of the summer.
The number of destroyed armoured vehicles supplied by the West far exceeds the number seized. The first footage showing the Bradleys suffering heavy losses appeared in June. Many have repeatedly criticised the Bradley’s armour levels long before the vehicles of the class were adopted. The extremely high levels of wear and tear recorded in Ukraine suggest that these worries were to some extent justified.
It was expected that the Russian army would suffer very heavy casualties in battles with Russian forces due to the availability of weapons such as Bradleys and Leopards by Ukrainian forces. Such expectations were based on the previous results of the use of this class by the Turkish army against the “Islamic State” and Kurdish rebels in Syria and Iraq.
The Leopard 2A6 is the latest widely used variant. It was first seen in numerous casualties in early June, just a couple of days after it was confirmed to be involved in offensive operations against Russian positions.
Concern in the United States that the reputation of America’s top M1 Abrams tank could be seriously tarnished by the footage of combat losses, according to a number of unconfirmed reports, led the US to put pressure on Ukraine. Ukrainian tank brigades have been ordered to keep as many of the vehicles as possible and to lose as few of them as possible on the battlefield, which of course is unrealistic since battles require top-of-the-line equipment and their loss to Russia’s military force is incurable.
In addition, in early September, the first footage of the destruction of a British Challenger 2 tank by Russian forces was published.
Now only the recently delivered Abrams have become the only class that has not had any losses so far, but even with them there are many problems, because of which the fear of using them on the battlefield can become critical for both the equipment and the crew, as there are a number of reasons why these vehicles cannot be used by untrained or poorly trained crews.
