Russia just lost another extremely rare weapons system in Ukraine
Ukrainian forces have destroyed a truly terrifying piece Russian equipment
A recently released video revealed that Russian forces have lost another extremely rare, and very expensive, weapon somewhere along the frontlines in Donetsk. The video was shared on the Telegram channel of Andriy Yarmak—Ukraine’s Head of the Presidential Office—and, according to Newsweek’s Nick Mordowanec, it captured the exact moment a TOS-1 or TOS-1A thermobaric multiple rocket launcher vehicle exploded after it was struck by Ukrainian forces.
Mordowanec called the destroyed Russian vehicle “one of the most dangerous weapons in existence,” and he did so for very good reason. Russia’s thermobaric rocket systems are one of the world’s deadliest armaments.
Designed in the late-1980s as a heavy flamethrower system according to Military-Today, the TOS-1 was made for firing directly onto advancing infantry and tank units by spreading flammable gas onto the battlefield.
“It is extremely effective against entrenched personal,” Military-Today noted, and “is used to clear out buildings, field fortifications, and bunkers.”
The reason why Russia’s thermobaric multiple rocket launcher systems are so feared is mostly because of the devastating effects they can have on the soldiers they attack.
The TOS-1 and TOS-1A use a type of explosive munition that Insider’s Chris Panella noted are often called vacuum bombs because of the way they explode and destroy a battlefield.
Sebastian Roblin of The National Interest wrote in a 2020 article that a rocket barrage from a TOS-1 could “wipe out everything” within the weapon’s blast zone. “Victims near the center of a TOS-1 blast radius are crushed to death.”
“Further out, the overpressure can break bones, dislocate eyes, cause internal hemorrhaging, and rupture eardrums, bowels, and other internal organs,” The National Interest writer continued.
A TOS-1A thermobaric rocket system can cost more than $6.5 million according to Newsweek and it has been exported to countries like Iraq, Armenia, and Kazakstan.
Jordan Cohan is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute and he told Newsweek that the destruction of Russia’s thermobaric weapons system was “a genuinely good thing.”
