Several videos have surfaced on social media showing the Russian soldiers seizing and driving trophy Western equipment
Russian soldiers in Ukraine have seized several Western-made pieces of heavy equipment in recent days, a series of videos published on social media has shown. The clips show Moscow’s troops driving a trophy US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and trying to start a German Leopard 2 battle tank.
Both videos were published by Russian journalist Vladimir Soloviev on his Telegram channel on Thursday. One of the clips shows a group of Russian soldiers led by one identified only by the call sign, ‘the Inquistor’, approaching a Leopard 2A4 tank.
The soldiers speak about starting its 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 the same day purports to show a trophy US-made Bradely infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) maneuvering on a dirt road near a settlement. According to Soloviev, the Western equipment piece was also seized by the Russian troops and was subsequently made operational again.
Earlier this week, Russian media reported that Moscow’s troops managed to seize a Bradley IFV and safely deliver it to the Russian positions and then to the rear in late November. According to the Russian RG newspaper, Russian forces had already destroyed dozens of the US-made IFVs but their wreckage mostly remained on the battlefields and the one captured in last month was the first one that ended up in the hands of the Russian military “relatively intact.”
It is unclear if the IFV seized in late November and the one demonstrated on the video published by Soloviev is one and the same.
The Russian military has repeatedly published videos of captured Western-made Ukrainian equipment but those heavy armor pieces usually had their running gear or other parts visibly damaged.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in summer that captured Western weaponry, such as BFVs, would be “reverse engineered” to adopt any military technology that might be useful to Moscow. 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. The study of the equipment piece’s armor would also make it easier for the troops to hit them, the paper added.
Western media reported as early as July that Moscow’s forces had already knocked out around a third of all Bradley IFVs supplied to Kiev by Washington by that time.
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