Moscow is reportedly moving obsolete Soviet-era armored personnel carriers to Ukraine. Ukrainian military observers suspect that the vehicles could be used as kamikaze weapons.
The Russian military is apparently sending obsolete BTR-50 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine. At least that’s what the pro-Russian Telegram channel of war blogger Kirill Fedorov reported on Thursday. Two photos published on Telegram are said to show the laying of such armored personnel carriers in the Donbass. The information cannot be independently verified.
The BTR-50 was developed on the basis of the T-76 light amphibious tank and introduced to the Soviet armed forces in 1954. In the motorized rifle regiments of the Red Army, it was used to transport up to 20 soldiers and equipment. Both unarmed models and versions with a heavy machine gun exist. The BTR-50 was also supplied to allied countries, including East Germany.
A disadvantage proved to be that the transported infantrymen had to leave the vehicle through a roof hatch instead of a tailgate, as is common today. Also, the BTR-50 was not suitable for fighting other tanks because of its very weak armor. Production was discontinued in the 1970s when a successor, the BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle, was in the starting blocks. By then, more than 6,300 copies had rolled off the assembly line. In 2003 about 1000 BTR-50 are said to have been in the inventory of the Russian army.
But why should Moscow move precisely these obsolete vehicles to the front? Ukrainian military bloggers suggest that the BTR-50s could serve as remote-controlled kamikaze vehicles to destroy fortified positions. A similar tactic was used by Islamic State terrorists in Syria in 2015. During the fighting for the city of Deir ez-Zor, they sent BTR-50s loaded with explosives against government troop positions.
