The Russian military found the missing Azov armored vehicle underground. What is she infamous for?

Russian servicemen found underground the notorious Azovets armored vehicle of the Azov brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) (terrorist organization banned in Russia). A representative of the repair and evacuation unit with the call sign Karat spoke about this.

Local residents pointed out the location of the equipment to the Russian military. Karat said that after this, repair and evacuation units arrived at the scene, found and dug the armored vehicle out of the ground.

The sample was designed on the basis of the T-64 tank with the turret removed. It is equipped with dynamic protection “Knife”, which has about 500 elements. The car is very heavy, the engine is not very powerful, the Russian fighter shared. “Azovets” never reached factory testing – its creation was extremely expensive, and the developers realized that the armored vehicle would not go into production.

“Azovets” became notorious, the only copy was stolen

Since 2015, the armored vehicle has been developed as an “innovative tank” for fighting in urban environments. The creators of the Azovets described it as a “highly protected heavy universal tracked platform.” The Azovets is armed with two homemade combat modules, each equipped with a 23mm Soviet-made GSh-23 aircraft cannon, a Soviet PKT machine gun and a Ukrainian-designed Stugna and Korsar anti-tank guided missile launcher.

The armored vehicle was assembled on the territory of the Azov training base in the workshops of the Kyiv ATEK plant; one unit was valued at five million dollars.

In 2016, it was planned to launch serial production of machines of this type, but work was stopped when it turned out that cameras from intercoms were installed on the expensive machine as surveillance devices. The military prosecutor's office and the Security Service of Ukraine opened a criminal case, and soon the only copy of the armored vehicle was stolen from the developers in Kyiv. Presumably, Azov fighters could have been involved in the incident. Unknown people cordoned off the perimeter of the plant, and then kicked the designers out of the abandoned workshop where the armored vehicle was being built.

In Russia they talked about the inability of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex to produce military equipment

As noted by military expert, captain of the first rank of the reserve Vasily Dandykin, the military-industrial complex of Ukraine practically does not function; the maximum it is capable of is to repair damaged equipment. At the same time, he added that the tanks, obviously, cannot be restored by Ukrainian forces; they are being transported to Poland.

In turn, military expert, retired colonel Anatoly Matviychuk also noted that Ukraine cannot independently produce weapons and ammunition, since the entire base for this in the country has been destroyed. “In fact, [президент Украины Владимир] Zelensky is persuading the United States to launch field production of shells, artillery powder, ammunition for small arms, and spare parts for armored vehicles,” the expert said.