Operation Overkill? Mines, Loitering Munitions, and Thermobaric Grenade Used to Destroy Russian BMP-3 – It is surprising that no one on social media commented that a Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle proved as difficult to kill as Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, the Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who had close ties to the Romanov family during the First World War.
As noted in a video, which was shared by Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons), the Russian IFV first ran over a mine near the village of Mariinka in the Donetsk Oblast.
Disabled and abandoned, but apparently still recoverable, the Ukrainian military sent a first-person view (FPV) loitering munition to ensure it couldn’t be returned to service.
Afterward, an RGT-27S2 thermobaric grenade was used to set off the ammunition stored onboard.
As the one-minute, 14-second-long video ended, the vehicle was burning with little hope that anything would be worth attempting to recover.
Mine Instead of Wine
In the case of the assassination of the “Mad Monk,” the story tells that he was at the home of Prince Felix Yusupov on December 30, 1916, when Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitir Pavlovich first fed the holy man with cakes laced with cyanide. It had no effect, however.
Rasputin then downed three glasses of Madeira wine that had also been poisoned, and yet again, he seemed unaffected. Next, Yusupov shot Rasputin three times – only for the mystic to once again rise like a phoenix. Shot a fourth time, he finally collapsed only after chasing his would-be assassin outside. Rasputin’s body was wrapped in cloth and dropped into the Malaya Nevka River.
Whether all of that actually occurred remains a matter of speculation, but more than a century later, Rasputin remains an almost mythic character.
It is doubtful, however, that this particular BMP-3 seen destroyed in the video will even be remembered a few weeks from now. It is one of hundreds lost just in the past few months in Ukraine.
Downfall of Russia
Yet, there is another part of the story that needs to be considered – namely that there was a rumor that Rasputin had a premonition that he was going to be assassinated. He warned Tsarina Alexandria that his death would serve as a portent to the end of the Romanov Dynasty within a year.
His prophecy proved quite accurate.
Within weeks, the February Revolution brought down the centuries-old monarchy. Alexandria, her husband Tsar Nicholas II, and their children were all killed by the Bolsheviks on July 17, 1918.
The destruction of a single BMP-3 isn’t noteworthy, yet, it should be remembered that it was the First World War – not Rasputian’s death – that actually ended the dynasty. Currently, upwards of 200,000 Russian soldiers have likely been killed since the war began, while thousands of tanks and other vehicles have been lost in the fighting.
The loss of all these vehicles and men could be a sign that Russia can’t win the war.
#Ukraine: The saga of a Russian BMP-3 IFV near Mariinka, #Donetsk Oblast – first, it ran over an AT mine and was abandoned, then it was hit by a Ukrainian FPV loitering munition and was then completely destroyed by a RGT-27S2 thermobaric grenade which detonated the ammo onboard. pic.twitter.com/DAlz7V5uWP
— ???????? Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 30, 2023
Instead of mad monks prophesizing that fact, we have military analysts and open-source intelligence. It is just the Kremlin that can’t accept it.
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Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
