Russia-Ukraine War: What Weapons Are The Two Sides Using?
Military experts have credited Ukrainian troops for their "MacGyver" approach to weaponry. In a recent New York Times report, experts cited how forces have implemented technology and equipment in ways that are surprising to even the most experienced marksman.
Some of the most advanced and lethal weapon systems in the world have been sent from the U.S. to the Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has used the weapons in unexpected ways as it looks to gain ground on Russia in a war that is in its sixth month.
"People are using the 'MacGyver' metaphor," Frederick B. Hodges, a former top U.S. Army commander in Europe, told the New York Times, in reference to the 1980s ABC television program. The title character used an array of self-made contraptions to get himself out of predicaments.
Troops have taken to mounting missiles on trucks to gain firing range and putting rocket systems on speedboats to increase their naval capabilities, just to name a few of the ingenuities that the Times cited.
Other weapon tricks include the Neptune, based on the design of an old Soviet anti-ship missile with improved range and electronics mounted onto one or more trucks, which took down Russia's Moskva in the Black Sea. Ukraine has also used Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial drones and the U.S.-supplied HARM anti-radiation missiles on Soviet-designed MiG-29 fighter jets, a first for any military.
Other weapons include the older OTR-21 Tochka ballistic missiles, which were used in the first days of the war, according to Reuters. Ukraine also has Cold War-era Russian-made S-300v anti-aircraft missile systems, and it has been supplied with NLAW, an antitank missile system developed with the U.K. and Sweden. There is also the FGM-148 Javelin, a tank destroyer.
Russia started its attacks on Ukraine with a series of targeted missile attacks from land and sea, using cruise missiles and Iskander-M precision short-range ballistic missiles, while Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles were used to hit the cities of Sumy, Poltava, and Mariupol in Ukraine, according to reports.
The BM-21 is also one of the multiple launch rocket systems used by the Russians, which can deliver 720 rockets in a single launch, among an array of other weapons, Reuters noted.
The Russian military has been accused of using widely banned cluster munitions, which are deployed as several smaller sub-munitions over a target, in a preschool attack on civilians in Ukraine.
Bellingcat, a nonprofit online journalism collective, documented Russia using the cluster munitions. The weapons have landed not only near schools but also hospitals in the cities of Kharkiv, Odesa and Kherson.
The Russia-Ukraine war has proven to be deadly for both sides. U.S. officials estimate that up to 80,000 Russian troops have been wounded or died, while Ukraine military officials say that they are losing 100 to 200 troops a day.
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