Is rattled Vlad set to unleash father of all bombs?
As a Russian truck carrying deadly vaporising rockets is seen in Ukraine...
DUSTED with snow and sitting on a tank-carrying truck, this is the menacing image of Russia’s deadly weapon that will spread fear across Ukraine – and the world.
After three days of dogged defence by Ukraine’s military frustrated the advance of Vladimir Putin’s forces, the Russian President yesterday deployed a fearsome rocket system onto the battlefield.
Footage verified by the American broadcaster CNN showed the Russian army moving TOS-1 Buratino rockets towards the front line.
Capable of firing a barrage of thermobaric ‘flamethrower’ rockets, the weapon can wipe out everything within a 300-yard radius. British military sources warn it could kill tens of thousands of civilians.
The rocket’s blast produces a wall of flame that is followed by a vacuum, which can cause deadly internal damage to lungs and other internal organs.
Among the world’s most deadly non-nuclear weapons, the powerful thermobaric devices were filmed yesterday on the back of a lorry just ten miles from Russia’s border with northern Ukraine.
It is believed they were heading for the city of Kharkiv, 250 miles east of Kyiv,
‘Indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of innocents’
where Ukrainian troops are putting up fierce resistance against Russian forces.
General Sir Richard Barrons, a former head of the UK’s joint forces command, last night said it remained unclear whether Putin would order his troops to use the weapons, but if he does the consequences will be devastating.
‘Unleashing thermobaric weapons and the mass concentrated use of heavy artillery will cause the indiscriminate, unnecessary and unwarranted slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people,’ he said.
‘The thing we have never known – and nobody knows – is the intent behind this, because nobody understands what is in Putin’s mind.’
Russian troops fighting around Kharkiv, in north-eastern Ukraine, have become bogged down after an attempt to encircle the city was repulsed by Ukrainian troops, who launched a devastating counter-attack on Russian armoured vehicles using British anti-tank missiles.
Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian MP, yesterday claimed that Putin’s military commanders expected to have seized Ukraine within one to four days.
He said capturing Kharkiv was central to the plan, adding: ‘They’re counting on Kharkiv to surrender first. And the other cities will follow suit, to avoid bloodshed.’
The CNN footage showed the thermobaric weapons system, which was mounted on a T-72 tank chassis, travelling on the back of a tank transporter at 1.20pm local time.
A thermobaric bomb dropped by the US on the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2017 weighed 21,600lb and left a crater more than 1,000ft wide after it exploded six feet above the ground.
Despite scenes of civilian apartment blocks being hit by shelling, military experts say Russia’s military has been fighting with more restrained tactics than usual.
Russian offensives in Chechnya in the 1990s, and more recently in Syria, were marked by horrific brutality and the targeting of civilians. ‘There is a ruthlessness in the way that the Russians have behaved in conflict… and they haven’t yet displayed entirely that ruthlessness,’ said Professor Michael Clarke, a former director general of the Royal United Services Institute defence think tank.
‘But we know they have the hardware and certainly the psychology to do this in a much more brutal way, and sadly they may be facing that moment of decision around Kyiv in the next few hours.’ One Western official said: ‘The Ukrainians have done a lot of effective work to slow down the Russians’ advance. So far their objectives have not been met. Our fear is that if delays continue, the Russians will resort to indiscriminate weapons, such as thermobaric weapons, in order to make swifter progress.’
General Barrons said the use of heavy weaponry could turn Russia’s population against Putin. ‘The thing that is appearing now is that lots of Russians, including important Russians, are wondering what path of lunacy Putin is taking them down now,’ he said.
‘And it is open to them to do something about it, in the way that it is not open to us.’
Intense fighting continued across the south of the country yesterday, including at Kherson, just north of Crimea, and in the Black Sea ports of Mykolaiv, Odessa and near Mariupol.
It emerged yesterday that Russia had staged amphibious landings, with thousands of troops storming ashore on Ukraine’s Sea of Azov coastline to the west of Mariupol. The assault appeared to be an attempt to cut off the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces claimed to have taken Melitopol, a city of 150,000 people in south Ukraine, although this was disputed by British officials. Russian airborne forces also landed near the city of Vasylkiv, about 25 miles south of Kiev, on Friday night and attempted to seize an air base but were repelled.