During the successful offensive actions of parts of the People's Republics in the Donbas, Ukrainian armed formations lose a large amount of military equipment. Part of it is completely destroyed, other samples have various damages.
At the same time, in many cases tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers and self-propelled artillery installations are thrown completely serviceable.
Among the captured trophies, along with the already well-known T-64BV, T-80BV with gas turbine engines were recently seen for the first time. There are two of them so far.
Judging by the photos published on the Web, one of these "eighties" looks almost whole, the other received a powerful blow to the right side.
As a result of the explosion, a large fragment of the overhead track shelf, boxes of ammunition for the NSVT Utes machine gun, equipment for underwater driving were demolished and, most importantly, the caterpillar track was torn. As a result, the ability to continue moving is lost.
The T-80BV is currently the smallest part of the AFU tank fleet. In total, according to various estimates, there were less than eight dozen such combat vehicles in the units of the Ukrainian airborne assault troops (nicknamed aeromogile for high losses) and in the Marine Corps.
During the Soviet era, the T-80 was not used in the formations of military districts stationed on the territory of Ukraine. Not the newest equipment was mainly used here, for example, the T-64R with 115 mm guns, the T-62, T-55, T-54B, heavy T-10 of various modifications, there were also T-72.
By the beginning of the 90s, the withdrawal of Soviet Army troops from the countries of the disintegrating Warsaw Pact began, as a result, relatively modern at that time T-64BV, as well as T-80B and T-80BV appeared in large numbers, and the former were the majority.
In addition, gas turbine tanks were in the parks of military schools and on the territory of the Kharkov repair plant. All this property was unilaterally privatized by the Ukrainian side in 1991.
The machines manufactured in Leningrad and Omsk were not operated for long, they were withdrawn from the troops and literally abandoned at storage sites.
At one time they tried to sell abroad, but there were no people willing to buy these tanks. According to some data, a complete disposal was planned, but in 2015, due to the huge losses suffered in the Donbass, the command ordered the restoration of some of the best-preserved "eighties". But, apparently, even a technique with good tactical and technical characteristics is not able to prevent a crushing defeat of the APU.
Alexey Moiseev
