The war in Ukraine is getting ever more dangerous by the second.
Is a NATO vs. Russia showdown possible?
One thing is very clear: social media will surely provide a front-row seat to events on the ground.
Russian MoD Footage Shows Upgrade Tanks Striking Ukrainian Position – While Russia is running short on modern weapons and advanced tanks, those that are already on the battlefield are proving effective.
In a video shared by the Russian Ministry of Defense, recorded from the perspective of a Russian tank driver, a modern T-90M tank can be seen destroying a Ukrainian position using a modernized gun.
The video was recorded in late February.
What We Know
The clip starts by showing the tank driver’s perspective as the tank drives, and then shows the tank operators preparing to strike a Ukrainian position.
The video was recorded professionally using several cameras and shows the tank operator successfully striking Ukrainian positions at a great distance on frozen ground.
The clip also offers a brief look inside of the tank.
No information was provided by the Russian MoD about the location in which the strikes occurred, and while aerial video footage shows the Ukrainian positions being struck by Russian fire, no information was provided about how many Ukrainian troops, vehicles, or pieces of military hardware were destroyed in the strike.
The T-90M is one of Russia’s most advanced tanks and a variant of the T-90 that was first introduced in 1992.
Is the Video Real?
It’s hard to tell just how real the video is.
While the footage appears to be real in the sense that the tank is indeed moving and appears to fire ammunition into the distance, the lack of location information could indicate that the Russian government is being deliberately vague.
The video, therefore, could simply be a part of a wider propaganda campaign to make the Russian military look better equipped than it really is.
One YouTube commenter noted that the video footage shows the tank shooting above a tree line with no line of sight on a target.
The same commenter noted that the footage showing explosions in the distance don’t prove that Ukrainian positions were hit by the strikes.
“Very nice collection of random clips here. I like the tank shooting above a treeline with no line of site on any target, followed by a random shot of a distant explosion,” the user writers. “Man, I can’t wait until these new Leopards showing these outdated tanks a turret flying lesson…”
Other users also noticed that very little could be seen of the Ukrainian positions allegedly destroyed by the modernized T-90M guns.
“Wonderful!” one user comments. “Modernized Russian gun blows up snow.”
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Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.