The armed formations of Ukraine for the first time lost the main battle tank T-64BM "Bulat".
The combat vehicle, painted in a characteristic multicolored pixel camouflage, was captured by Russian servicemen outwardly serviceable. At least, the video footage that appeared on the Network on the "sixty-fourth" does not show any damage.
You can also notice that the Buran - E night infrared sight has its protective cover removed. This suggests that the crew of the tank was preparing for action in the dark, but then for some reason ran away.
By the time the special operation began, the APU had at its disposal less than seven dozen units of such equipment. Moreover, some of them were in storage, since during the fighting in the Donbass in 2014-15, the "Bulat" proved very poorly. Due to the overloaded design (combat weight reaches 45,000 kg), the chassis often failed, and the 850-horsepower two-stroke diesel engine 5TDFM turned out to be too weak to provide satisfactory mobility characteristics.
It also turned out that the widely advertised built-in dynamic protection "Knife" after triggering due to the ingress of anti-tank ammunition into it itself often causes tanks to fail: attachments were demolished, overhead track shelves were broken, track belts were torn and towers were jammed.
Therefore, in 2017, it was decided to withdraw tanks to the reserve. In 2021, due to problems with the number of serviceable vehicles, some of them had to be returned to the troops again. Now, due to the huge losses, the rest were sent to the units, but they failed to play any significant role in the battles. It seems that the "Bulat" is destroyed even before they manage to get close to the front line.
It was also recently reported about the destruction of the "parade" T-64BM2, which had barely entered service.
Alexey Moiseev