A Ukrainian milblogger shared video footage showing a Russian S-60 anti-aircraft gun undergoing self-destruction and reportedly killing the crew.
Knewz.com has learned that the incident occurred on Ukrainian territory, although the exact location is unknown.
The video, which seems to have been captured by an observer, initially showed a crew of Russian soldiers preparing to fire an AZP S-60 Soviet-era anti-aircraft gun.
As they loaded the projectile into the barrel of the weapon and fired it, the single-barrelled medium-range gun exploded from what seemed like a malfunction, enveloping the weapon in smoke and flames.
The observer recording the video could be seen rushing to a safer distance once the weapon exploded, but the footage does not show what became of the Russian crew that was caught in the explosion.
Ukrainian milblogger Operational Armed Forces shared the video on Telegram, mentioning in the caption that the explosion took place in the barrel of the Soviet-era anti-aircraft gun.
The Ukrainian news outlet Censor.NET also shared the video and wrote that the Russian soldiers operating the weapon reportedly "burned to death by a shell explosion in the gun barrel."
Kyiv Post chalked up the latest self-destruction accident to Russia's use of faulty and backdated Soviet-era weapons, putting the lives of its own troops in danger.
"This is not the first time Russian equipment and personnel have been injured and killed using Soviet era weapons and ammunition in the war against Ukraine. The causes could be a failure to follow safety procedures through ignorance or negligence, or the age and condition of the ammunition being used, or a combination of the two," the outlet wrote.
The AZP S-60 anti-aircraft gun was designed in the 1940s, inspired by German weapon systems – precisely, the 55mm Gerät 58 and 50mm FlaK 41 guns – during the Second World War.
"The weapon system was introduced to Warsaw Pact nations in 1950 and soon after, the gun was sold to communist-friendly nations throughout the Middle East and South Asia," per the military information outlet Military Factory.
Notably, Russia has also been using refurbished Soviet-era tanks in the Ukraine war in the face of battlefield shortages.
German news outlet Süddeutsche Zeitung noted in June that the 111th Central Armored Reserve base, one of the largest Russian tank reserve warehouses, has seen a drastic decrease in tank numbers since the Russian invasion began.
The outlet reported that the 60-hectare base contained 857 tanks in April 2021, whereas satellite images from October 2022, eight months after the start of the war, only showed 431 tanks. The latest images show that the base is "almost empty."
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) mentioned in a February 2024 analysis that around 80% of armored vehicles and war machines used by Russia in the war are refurbished and modernized from the nation's war stocks.
On the other hand, the Russian forces have also shown a self-destructive streak in the war, in the sense that Vladimir Putin's troops have often downed or destroyed their own war elements in "friendly fire" accidents.
On June 21, Russian air defenses shot down their own helicopter conducting reconnaissance in the Black Sea region.
The Russian Ka-29 helicopter was looking for Ukrainian sea drones when it was shot down by the Pantsir air defense missile system near the town of Anapa, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, reportedly as a result of a malfunction.
