Russia’s failed offensive in east left cemetery of broken equipment near Chasiv Yar - Forbes. PHOTO

8 80714

The recent unsuccessful Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine has left behind a "cemetery" of broken armoured vehicles.

According to Censor.NET, Forbes analyst David Axe writes about this.

"The lack of snow and the recent reports of a massive Russian assault involving a lot of T-62s seem to point to Chasiv Yar, a fortress town in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. It’s apparent from the density of the vehicle cemetery that a large assault group ran into stiff Ukrainian resistance - and was quickly destroyed," the article says..

Кладовище російської техніки

The analyst notes that most of the 14 pieces of wreckage are conventional types of equipment, including old T-62 tanks and MT-LB armoured tractors. However, among the tanks and tractors, there are several interesting new tracked vehicles, which are probably home-made armoured personnel carriers based on the T-62 chassis.

Кладовище російської техніки

"All things being equal, a turretless T-62’s 33-ton armored hull, matched with a 580-horsepower engine, should offer a reasonable degree of protection and mobility to any infantry who can squeeze into the empty space where the turret bustle used to be," Axe wrote.

Кладовище російської техніки

However, the problem with these vehicles, as well as other Russian equipment, is that none of them stand a chance in massive attacks under drone strikes. Forbes quotes a Russian blogger as saying that Ukrainians "completely destroy it with FPV drones, taking anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes.

According to Axe, in the near future, Russian officers will use more and more armoured personnel carriers converted from T-62s.

"Expect to see more T-62-based APCs as Russia’s vehicle losses exceed 15,000 and purpose-built APCs become rarer. Also expect these improvised vehicles to suffer the same fates as the more sophisticated tracked BMP-3s and wheeled BTR-82s they’re replacing," he concluded.

As a reminder, Ukrainian defenders are destroying Russian armoured vehicles faster than the Russian defence industry is able to restore their losses.

Author: Олена Гуляєва