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A rare minelayer has been spotted in Russia and is likely moving closer to the Ukraine front. It can cover huge areas with mines in a short period of time.
Tver – “This is a 20-kilometer-long hell,” Mark Kimmitt told Business Insider at the beginning of the counter-offensive in the Ukraine war exactly one year ago. The former US brigadier general was referring to the defense lines of the Russian invaders. He has no doubt that overcoming the mine-fortified defense positions “is probably the hardest fighting outside the cities,” he said.
Ukraine is reportedly trying to find weak points in the minefields and exploit them. Russia may now also feel the need to bunker down in Kharkiv and switch to defensive mode.
Rare combat vehicle spotted in Russia – it moves closer to the Ukraine front
It is fitting that a rare combat vehicle has now been spotted in the Russian region of Tver, northwest of Moscow, as the magazine Defense Express reported – a UMZ-G: a tracked mine-laying system on a T-72 chassis, which is still technically in the development phase, but at least seems to be moving closer to the front. “The Russian goal was to advance to Kharkiv at least within artillery range – not to take the city itself, they would not be logistically able to do that, but to advance far enough to be able to credibly threaten the city or credibly bombard it,” says Marcus Keupp in ZDF“However, the advance came to a halt quite quickly and quite strongly. They advanced about three or four kilometers from the Ukrainian border and were then stopped,” Keupp explains the Russians’ situation.
Minefields in Ukraine Putin’s weapon of choice?
The military economist of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich speaks in ZDF from the conflicts in the triangle of the settlements of Kharkiv, Lyptsi and Vovchansk. If Vladimir Putin’s troops try to prevent Ukraine from pushing them out of their desired buffer zone, minefields would be the method of choice.
In 2019, Russia presented a new generation of minelayers at the international military-technical forum “Army 2019” – two of them are on wheels, the heaviest, the UMZ-G, rolls on the chassis of the T-72 or T-90 tank and functions as a remote-controlled mine-laying system. The armored vehicle weighs more than 40 tons and carries nine launchers, each with nine tubes for 270 mine cassettes. The mobility of the vehicle is said to be equal to that of the main battle tanks, writes the magazine Top War.
Putin’s new weapon: Explosive rain against tanks, soldiers or both
The basic model, which was developed on the basis of the existing tank chassis, is called Top War as multifunctional. The front armour had to be removed, the system is controlled by two soldiers, the driver and operator. However, the armour should be able to withstand fire from heavy machine guns.
Such a tracked armored vehicle would not only be used as a rocket launcher. A protected vehicle for personnel, commanders or the wounded could be built along with the necessary equipment – from communication devices to various weapons. “The relatively high performance characteristics of such different models would be complemented by the advantages of a unified platform,” writes Top War.
However, the Russian magazine said that it had only seen prototypes at the exhibition. A date for the commissioning was not mentioned. The vehicle is designed for the remote-controlled laying of anti-tank, anti-personnel and mixed minefields from a mine cassette with subsequent recording of the minefield coordinates and the possibility of setting the time of mine self-destruction using the mine control system, writes Army recognition.
According to the magazine, the UMZ-G can operate autonomously or as part of a combat unit. The laying of a minefield is carried out on command from the staff and is reported back digitally, as Army recognition writes: “Upon completion of the mine mission, a minefield map is created and automatically transmitted electronically to a command post via the unified tactical management system.”
Death trap Ukraine: Fear marches across several football fields
Loud Army recognition The maximum length of the minefield laid with a basic mine charge from the UMG-Z is 3,200 meters for anti-personnel explosive mines; 5,000 meters for anti-personnel fragmentation mines; 600 meters for anti-tank mines. The individual mine can be laid with a maximum range of 40 meters and a speed of 40 kilometers per hour. The minefields created in this way are up to 240 meters deep.
Russia’s army could mine several football fields in a short time with new equipment
“These are basically multiple rocket launchers that have a collection of mines in the warhead instead of explosives. A kind of cluster munition that opens in the air and then falls to the ground. Yes, and this is how the Russians are supposed to be able to mine large areas – we’re talking about several football fields – within a very short time, and of course from a safe distance,” writes Jörg Römer for the Mirror about the functionality of the armored minelayer.
According to him, the massive mining by the Russian forces and their own slow progress under constant threat of death also had a psychological effect on the Ukrainian defenders: The soldiers feared being seriously injured or killed by the insidious mines, said Römer.
ForbesAuthor David Ax explained the Soviet doctrine of laying a minefield as meaning that sappers would try to lay defensive minefields shortly before an expected enemy attack. The minefields would be narrow and long like a road, as opposed to the shape of a fence, which is wide and narrow. The individual fields would then be laid next to each other.
The vehicle that has now surfaced could mean a new need for minefields in combat – between the presentation of the prototype and the current state of the Ukraine war, hardly any information about the system had become public. Defense Express interprets the fact that the Russian armed forces have deployed one or more UMZ-G systems within Russia as an indication “that work on this minelayer has resumed in view of the increasing demand for this type of equipment on the Ukrainian front,” the magazine writes.
Dream mine thrower: Ukrainian soldiers could double Russia’s blood toll
Ukraine also seems to want to rely on these systems, as Defense Express currently reports: Ukrainian soldiers hope that “the use of these systems could significantly increase the effectiveness of Ukrainian defense operations.” The Russians would probably pay twice as much in blood due to the nature of their attacks against minefields laid by Ukraine. According to Ukrainian sources, remote-controlled minelayers have proven effective against the Russian invaders, especially during the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023. Apparently, there is now a threat of a similar freezing of the front in Kharkiv and the entrenchment of the Russian aggressors behind deeply staggered minefields.
Civilian population suffers from mortars in the Ukraine war – “Areas where nobody wants to go”
However, the civilian population is also suffering from the explosive rain from the mortars: “Some areas around Kharkiv and Dnipro in the east as well as Mykolaiv and Kherson in the south of Ukraine are cut off from the rest of the country by bombings and contamination with mines and unexploded bombs,” says Eva Maria Fischer, according to the Evangelical Newspaper.
The head of the political department of the aid organization Handicap International (HI) Germany According to reports, after more than two years of war in Ukraine, there are so many unexploded bombs and mines in some areas that people’s range of movement is severely restricted. Older people and people with disabilities in particular have remained in their homes and can no longer leave – and helpers are also at risk of death, as Fischer adds: “These are areas that no one wants to go to because they are too difficult to reach.”
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