The Russian military is making advances at multiple locations along the frontline in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), according to a daily press briefing of the country’s Defense Ministry released on Friday.
Over the past 24 hours, Moscow’s troops have inflicted heavy casualties on the adversary, amounting to up to 795 servicemen. The DPR saw intense combat at multiple locations, with the troops “taking up better positions” near the village of Klescheevka, located to the southwest of the town of Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut). The small village has been experiencing heavy combat for months, following the liberation of Artyomovsk early last year.
The Russian military reported destroying multiple pieces of military hardware, including assorted armored and soft vehicles, as well as several artillery pieces, including two US-made M777 towed howitzers. The military said it conducted multiple long-range attacks on Ukrainian ammunition stockpiles, troops, and hardware assembly points in more than 100 locations.
On Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported making advances and “taking up better positions,” including in the vicinity of the DPR town of Liman. Liberated early into the ongoing conflict, the town fell back under Ukrainian control in late 2022.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu revealed fresh estimates on the casualties sustained by Ukrainian forces over the past month. All in all, Ukraine lost more than 23,000 troops in January, the minister claimed during a meeting with top Russian military commanders on Friday, stating his forces now “hold the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact.”
Over the past month, the Ukrainian military has also suffered heavy equipment losses, with over 3,000 heavy hardware pieces destroyed. The losses include multiple US-supplied Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems, German-supplied Leopard main battle tanks and other hardware provided to Kiev by its Western sponsors, according to Shoigu.
Watch Destruction of Ukrainian Tank by Krasnopol Precision-Guided Artillery Munition
The 2K25 Krasnopol guided projectile is a weapon effectively used by the Russian Army in the special military operation. It is designed to engage a wide range of targets, including enemy troops, fortifications, and armored vehicles.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has released footage showing the destruction of a Ukrainian tank by a 2K25 Krasnopol precision-guided artillery munition in the village of Staromayorskoye, Donetsk People's Republic.
The target was identified by an unmanned aerial vehicle and destroyed by artillerymen of Battlegroup Vostok, according to the ministry.
Russia's Newest Arms Clearly Better Than NATO's - Putin
Russia’s newest arms are clearly better compared to the ones of NATO, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
"Of course, if we compare NATO’s modern arms to the arms of the latest Soviet period, they [Soviet ones] rank below in some qualities, by the way, not always. But if we are talking about our new arms, they are clearly better. It is an obvious fact," Putin said at the Everything for the Victory forum in the Russian city of Tula.
Russia’s defense industry has been showing good pace and quality, the president added.
Russia has exported military equipment worth billions of dollars last year, Putin said.
“Last year, we supplied a decent amount of our military equipment to world markets — worth billions of dollars,” Putin said at the Everything for the Victory forum in the Russian city of Tula.
Putin mentioned that the Pantsir missile systems are especially popular among foreign buyers.
How Russia Transformed T-80 Tank Into Armored Multiple Rocket Launcher
The Ukrainian crisis has demonstrated that far from being a holdover of 20th century warfare, artillery remains an indispensable ‘God of War’ in 21st century conflicts. Russia has a vast array of artillery types in its arsenal, with its latest entry consisting of a T-80 tank chassis fitted with a naval rocket launcher. Here’s what we know about it.
Footage has appeared online showing an RBU-6000 naval rocket launcher mated to a T-80B tank chassis being fired in a steppe somewhere on the frontline in the special operation zone.
Russia’s military and arms industry have not commented on the curious, custom-built multiple launch rocket system (MLRS), with RBU-6000 launchers attached to ground vehicles first spotted in the fall of 2023, and fitted aboard MT-LB tracked armored fighting vehicles, as well as Ural and Kamaz trucks.
The decision to attach the RBU-6000 to a T-80 chassis seems to have been the next logical step, given that tank armor will provide its crew with protection against everything from enemy small arms fire to artillery shrapnel, nullifying a key vulnerability of more traditional MLRS launchers and allowing it to be placed closer to dangerous frontline areas.
What is the RBU-6000?
Introduced with the Soviet Navy back in the early 1960s, the RBU-6000 is 3.5 ton, 213 mm caliber anti-submarine and anti-torpedo rocket launcher with twelve radially placed barrels typically attached to surface warships. Also known as the ‘Smerch-2’ (lit. ‘Tornado-2’ or ‘Whirlwind-2’), the system fires RGB-60 rockets - which weigh 113.5 kg apiece, come with a 23 kg high-explosive munition, have a range of up to 6 km, and function at depths up to 500 meters.
A deep modernization of the RBU-6000 known as the RPK-8 was developed in the 1980s and adopted into service in late 1991, featuring new rockets with underwater homing capability and a functional operational depth of up to 1,000 meters. The newer systems were equipped with 19.5 kg shaped charges designed to attach themselves to enemy subs and tear open their hulls. The latest variants of the installation come with a remotely directed fire control system.
Russian warships taking part in the special military operation have used both the RBU-6000 and the RPK-8 extensively to target Ukrainian naval drones attacking ships of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and their home ports.
What are the Characteristics of the T-80’s Chassis?
First introduced into service in the mid-1970s, the T-80 tank chassis features a powerful, 1,100 horsepower gas turbine engine, presumably giving the customized RBU-6000-equipped MLRS module enough pep to maneuver into the line of fire, shoot its rockets and rapidly fall back to avoid enemy counter fire in a strategy known as ‘shoot and scoot’.
At the start of the special military operation in 2022, Russia had thousands of mothballed T-80s in various states at warehouses scattered across the country, with arms makers gradually taking them out, dusting them off, and modernizing them, and sending them to the front. The T-80B variant seen in the video above was introduced in 1980, and typically comes equipped with improved composite armor, a laser rangefinder, improved fire control system and night sight. It’s not clear which of these improvements are featured in the new Smerch-2-equipped T-80-based MLRS.
Russia’s propensity for using tank chassis for purposes other than a modern main battle tank is well-known, with Soviet and Russian engineers mating them to heavy engineering and mine-clearing equipment, attaching them to heavy guns to create mobile howitzers, using them to propel the deadly TOS-2 thermobaric heavy flamethrower system, and even attaching them to the unique 1K17 Szhatie (lit. ‘Compression’) – a Soviet laser combat platform designed to disable enemy optical-electronic equipment.
What are the Ground-based Smerch-2's Capabilities?
The T-80 chassis-fitted ground-based Smerch-2 launcher appears to be the brainchild of frontline military engineers, known to create a wide array of do-it-yourself-style arms using whatever tools, equipment and spare parts happen to be available. The system's appearance in a variety of form factors (attached to a T-80 chassis, MT-LB APCs and trucks) appears to confirm its operational effectiveness. No official details on the system's capabilities have been publicized, but if it's anything like its naval variant, the ground-based Smerch-2 would have a range up to 6 km, while the T-80 chassis mean an operational range of up to 335 km without refueling.
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