Avdiivka is a small town in Donetsk region, Ukraine. Before the war around 30 thousand people lived there peacefully, many working in the local Coke Plant. Now Russian invaders are pushing to occupy Avdiivka as quickly as possible. In doing so they are taking huge losses both in personnel and armoured equipment. And, for the first time in this war, there is confirmation that even an extremely rare armoured personnel carrier BTR-90 was lost in a battle for this small town.
BTR-90 in some sort of exhibition in 2008. These armoured personnel carriers were produced in extremely small numbers from 2004 to 2011. Image credit: Vitaly V. Kuzmin via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Avdiivka is important for the defense of Ukraine because after taking this small city, which is now completely in ruins, Russian invaders will be able to attack other cities. Some important Ukrainian logistical routes would be within reach of Russians. However, the relentless attacks, which mostly end without any results, require Russians to pull out all kinds of obscure weapons.
For example, it was recently confirmed that Russian forces have lost one BTR-90 armoured personnel carrier right next to Avdiivka. This machine was damaged and abandoned by its crew. Most likely, it will be addressed later – destroyed with a drone or an artillery shell to remove the possibility that Russia might rescue and repair it for future operations.
The BTR-90 is an extremely rare armoured personnel carrier. According to some sources, only around 12 were ever produced. It is really not that special, but Russians are losing so much equipment that they are using even these rare machines.
The BTR-90 was designed in 1993–1994. It is a sort of an improved larger version of the BTR-80 with better protection from 14.5 mm projectiles over the frontal arc. It was meant to be used by mechanized units of the Russian army, as well as marine units of the Russian Navy, but never entered mass production and remained in duty with the National Guard of Russia.
The BTR-90 is 764 metres long, weighs around 21 tonnes and houses a crew of 3 and 7 troops as passengers. It is armed with a 30 mm Shipunov 2A42 autocannon, 7.62 mm PKT machine gun, and can have grenade launchers or an anti-tank missile too. The BTR-90 is meant to be a highly mobile armoured vehicle.
Thanks to its 380 kW diesel engine and an 8×8 chassis the BTR-90 can accelerate to 100 km/h and is pretty good off-road. It can also sail at 9 km/h.
The BTR-90 was first spotted in Avdiivka in October. Now, on December 10, a video was posted showing that Russians have lost this very rare vehicle. There is no doubt that it will be destroyed so that Russians cannot use it again.
The first loss of the Russian BTR-90 (damaged and abounded). Avdiivka front.
In mid October 2023 BTR-90 was spotted at the front for the first time. BTR-90 exists only in very limited quantities, as it was never mass-producedhttps://t.co/u4ZFS4UjZ0https://t.co/FzSGbb6zi1 https://t.co/1B3oSyODOn pic.twitter.com/9jNT0v3cD1— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 10, 2023
Avdiika is proving to be a major obstacle in the way of the Russian offensive. Russians are losing tens of armoured vehicles in the area every week. Their tactic is obvious – Russia hopes to overwhelm the Ukrainian defenses by simply launching an uncountable number of attacks with a huge number of soldiers, disregarding their own losses.
Written by Povilas M.
Sources: bayraktar_1love Twitter, Wikipedia