Remember when Ukraine destroyed one of Russia's most advanced armored fighting vehicles?

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have destroyed a lot of high-value and cutting-edge Russian weapons since Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

However, few of the weapons that Ukraine has destroyed have received as much attention from the media as the first BMPT Terminator Ukrainian forces knocked out of the war in 2023. 

In February 2023, Serhii Haidai, the Regional Military Administration of Luhansk at the time published images of what he claimed was the first Russian BMPT Terminator armored fighting vehicle lost in the war on Telegram. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @serhiy_hayday

This was the first confirmed kill of Russia’s most advanced tank support armored fighting vehicle. However, the BMPT was a weapon that Russian officials seemed supremely confident in when its deployment to Ukraine was announced in May 2022.

"So many beautiful words about the car being almost impossible to destroy….almost," Haidai wrote sarcastically on his Telegram channel according to a Yahoo Finance translation. 

The Terminator BMPT was designed as a tank support armored fighting vehicle that was meant to protect Russian tanks from anti-tank opponents according to Insider’s Steve Balestrieri. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Kirill Borisenko, Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

“Interest in the design peaked after Russia's disastrous invasion of Chechnya in the mid-1990s,” Balestrieri wrote in a 2020 article on the BMPT Terminator. 

“At the time,” the Insider journalist added, “Russian forces employed Soviet-era tactics which resulted in some of their units being decimated in urban warfare.”

Urban warfare in Ukraine has proven to be as devastating as fighting in Chechnya, and that may be why Russia’s General Staff decided to deploy the Terminator in 2022.

In December 2022, a Russian video of a Terminator attacking Ukrainian positions in Luhansk showed that the weapon was more than just useful in urban combat operations. 

“During recent fighting, the enemy’s dugout was practically trampled on, and the enemy fled at the sight of the Terminator,” A Terminator Crew Commander wrote in a statement to RIA Novosti at the time. “For them, this is an unfamiliar machine and incomprehensible.” 

Some Western journalists also commented on the combat effectiveness of Russia’s most advanced tank support vehicle, as well as the possible future it has as a war-winning weapon in Ukraine. 

"The BMPT is designed to overcome the vulnerability of the tank on a modern battlefield teeming with light anti-tank weapons," wrote David Hambling of Forbes in January 2023.

“It may end up as the last vehicle standing,” Hambling added, “and more relevant to the outcome of the war than the tanks which have become such a vital topic of discussion.”

Hambling noted that Russia’s BMPT is equipped with a main armament of two stabilized 30mm autocannons with a range of 2000 meters and four Ataka anti-tank guided missile launchers that can be used against heavier targets, which have a range of 6000 meters. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin, CC BY-SA 4.0

None of the BMPT Terminator's weaponry was a match for Ukranian forces in February 2023, however. It is still unknown what caused the initial damage to the vehicle, but after it was found it was quickly finished off by artillery from the Ukrainian Marine Corps’ 140th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion. 

Photo Credit: Facebook @uafmarines

“Hasta la vista, baby,” read a post on the Facebook page of Ukraine’s Marine Corps Command which also shared a video of the destroyed BMPT. 

Photo Credit: Facebook @uafmarines

“So, we see that this allegedly ‘invincible’ and ‘unique’ combat vehicle burns just as well as the rest of Russian scrap metal,” the post continued according to Google Translation. “Glory to the marines! Glory to Ukraine!”

As of December 28th, the Dutch open-source intelligence firm Oryx, which has been tracking verifiable equipment losses in the war through photo and video evidence, reported Russia has lost 3 BMPTs since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.