Putin reveals fate of captured Western weaponry
Russian specialists will inspect Western-made weaponry that has been captured by the military in the course of repelling Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive, President Vladimir Putin has said.
In an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin, Putin was asked to comment on what Moscow plans to do with the seized Western armor. “There is an expression called ‘reverse engineering,’” he said, according to a clip released on Sunday.
While noting that both Russia and Western countries have modern equipment, he said that Moscow has no intention of passing up the chance to examine Western technology up close. “If there is an opportunity to look inside and see if there is something that we can apply, then why not?”
The president nevertheless praised Russian hardware, particularly the T-90 main battle tank. “[This] tank is the best in the world, without any exaggeration.”
Putin’s remarks come after several videos went viral earlier this week on social media featuring Russian soldiers standing in front of a captured US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, thanking Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for the gift.
Last week, Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, who now heads the Tsar’s Wolves military technical center, claimed that the military seized a UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missile. The rocket, he said, was only partially destroyed on impact, making it a potentially useful source of technical information.
Ukrainian forces went on a major offensive in the early days of June with the help of hundreds of Western-supplied armored vehicles. However, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev has so far failed to gain any ground. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated Ukrainian losses at more than 26,000 service members and 3,000 units of heavy military equipment.
In late June, the New York Times reported that Ukraine had lost around 15% of the Bradleys it received from the US, with the vast Russian minefields cited as one of the main causes.
