Russian troops capture more top-of-the-range Western-made hardware (VIDEO)
Russian soldiers in Ukraine have seized several Western-made pieces of heavy equipment in recent days, a series of videos published on social media shows. The clips show the troops driving a trophy US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and trying to start a German-made Leopard 2 tank.
Both videos were published by Russian journalist Vladimir Soloviev on Telegram on Thursday. One of the clips shows a group of Russian soldiers led by one identified only by the call sign ‘the Inquisitor’ approaching a Leopard 2A4 tank.
The soldiers discuss starting the engine and driving it back to the Russian positions. The heavy armor in the footage appears to be unharmed but abandoned by Ukrainian forces. No visible damage to the tank can be seen.
The second clip published by the journalist later that day purports to show a trophy US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) maneuvering on a dirt road near a settlement. According to Soloviev, it was also seized by the Russian troops and was subsequently made operational again.
Earlier this week, media reported that Russian troops seized a Bradley IFV and safely delivered it to their positions and then to the rear in late November. According to the newspaper RG, Russian forces had already destroyed dozens of the US-made IFVs but the wreckage mostly remained on the battlefields, and the one captured in the last month was the first that ended up in the hands of the Russian military “relatively intact.”
It is unclear whether the IFV seized in late November and the one shown in the video published by Soloviev is the same.
The Russian military has published numerous videos of captured Western-made Ukrainian equipment, but it has typically been visibly damaged.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this summer that captured Western weaponry, such as BFVs, would be “reverse engineered” to adopt any technology that might be useful. According to RG, a detailed study of the captured Bradley could help Russian engineers to improve radio electronic combat systems, making all other US-made IFVs more susceptible to them.
Western media reported as early as July that Russian forces had already knocked out around a third of all Bradley IFVs supplied to Kiev by Washington by that time.
