Ukrainian armed formations are increasingly simply abandoning their heavy military equipment. So, in the Starobilsk district of the Luhansk People's Republic, employees of the Prosecutor's Office found a 152-mm self-propelled artillery 2C3 "Acacia".
Information about this find was published by the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office of the LPR. The crew of the ACS number 126 tried to disguise the combat vehicle with pine branches, but then for some unknown reason left it and ran away.
"Acacia" are currently one of the most massive self-propelled guns in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but recently they can not be seen too often.
It is known that in 1991, as part of three military districts located on the territory of Ukraine, there were more than half a thousand such 152-mm howitzers. Over time, some of them were sold to foreign armies, some were written off.
By the time the Ukrainian punitive operation in the Donbas began in 2014, there were about two hundred self-propelled guns in the troops. Several batteries were destroyed by the militia of the People's Republics. Another part of 2C3 was blown up by the crews themselves during the retreat. The whole division was captured in good condition.
By the beginning of this year, 249 such installations remained in artillery units. However, a significant part of them have never been properly repaired for more than three decades, and problems with the serviceability of equipment regularly arise.
Therefore, the command of the nationalists so wants to get foreign self-propelled guns, like the British AS-90, Slovak Zuzana or German Panzerhaubitze 2000.
Alexey Brusilov
