Combat footage shows Ukrainian troops capturing a Russian armored vehicle

The Ukrainian Armed Forces captured a Russian infantry fighting vehicle during a battle on the eastern front. More importantly, an overhead drone captured the incident and the combat footage was published online. 

Soldiers of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade captured a Russian BMP-2 following a battle between their BMP-2 and the Russian armored vehicle according to a report by the Ukrainian military news website Militarnyi. 

The incident occurred in the Donetsk region near the former Ukrainian stronghold town of Vuhledar. Video footage of the fighting and capture of the Russian BMP-2 was posted to Telegram by the 72nd Brigades’s TOTEM platoon of unmanned aerial vehicles.  

In the video footage, the Russian BMP-2 and Ukrainian BMP-2 can be seen meeting on opposite sides of a road northwest of Vuhledar. Drone operators monitored the Russian armored vehicle's movements throughout the fight. 

The Ukrainian BMP-2 appeared to be the first vehicle to fire on the other based on the video footage. Militarnyi noted that the BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles come equipped with a 2A42 30mm automatic cannon. 

The 2A42 30mm automatic cannon “can easily penetrate the armor of a Soviet armored vehicle” according to Militarnyi, and that appears to be what happened in the footage as the two armored vehicles slowly crept towards each other. 

Sparks and smoke quickly began emerging from the Russian BMP-2 as drone operators zoomed in on the vehicle during the fighting. What happened to the vehicle immediately after it began smoking wasn’t revealed by the footage. 

The video quickly cuts to a scene showing a Ukrainian soldier brandishing a Ukrainian flag on top of a BMP-2, presumably the Russian BMP-2 involved in the fight. However, that detail has not been independently verified. 

Militarnyi reported that the Russian BMP-2 crew involved in the fighting was eliminated according to the 72nd Brigade’s TOTEM platoon of unmanned aerial vehicles. 

“After the Russians were eliminated, the infantry fighting vehicle was taken over by Ukrainian soldiers, who managed to start the BMP and drive it to their positions,” Militarnyi also reported. 

Vuhledar has been the site of recent interest in September and October following its rumored collapse, and then subsequently confirmed fall, to Russia after years of fighting over the Ukrainian stronghold in Donetsk. 

“Having suffered numerous losses as a result of prolonged battles, the enemy did not stop trying to capture Vuhledar,” a statement from Ukraine’s Eastern Command read according to NBC News. 

“In an effort to take control of the city at any cost, [Russia] managed to direct the reserves to carry out flanking attacks, which exhausted the defense of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the statement continued. 

Ukrainian command gave the units still fighting in and around Vuhledar permission to begin their withdrawal from the town “in order to preserve personnel and combat equipment, to take up positions for further actions,” the statement added. 

NBC News reported the 72nd Brigade was the last unit defending Vuhledar and that the loss of the stronghold would be significant since the small town lies at the crossroads of eastern and southern battlefields and could allow Russia to push deeper into Ukraine. 

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on October 1st that Ukraine had likely lost Vuhledar based on geolocated footage. However, the Washington-based think tank assed that Vuhledar's loss would probably not change the war significantly. 

“Russia’s seizure of Vuhledar is unlikely to fundamentally alter the course of offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast, largely because Vuhledar is not a particularly crucial logistics node,” ISW analysts wrote on X. 

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