2024-02-13 21:59:49
The Ukrainian TV channel TSN reported the confession of soldier Oleksandr, who commands the American-made M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. He claims that he fought on the battlefield with his father, who is said to have served in the Russian army as a tank driver.
Footage from January shows how a Bradley fighting vehicle coped with a Russian tank. | Video: Aktuálně.cz/X/Defence of Ukraine
Oleksandr, now only nineteen years old, says he spent half of his childhood in Russia. Not long after Ukraine launched a counter-offensive in 2023, his Russian father allegedly contacted him and asked him to defect to the Russian military. Oleksandr, who has not seen his father since childhood, called him a “nobody” in an interview with TSN and refused his request.
A reporter for a Ukrainian television station claimed that the father, as a tanker, was sent to intercept the Bradleys. One of them was allegedly commanded by Oleksandr. The son told TSN that the tank, apparently operated by his father, fired a grenade into the side of a Ukrainian infantry fighting vehicle commanded by Oleksandr. It is said that the intervention did not fatally damage Bradley.
According to Oleksandr, his father later called him and claimed that he stopped shooting when he realized who was in the car. “He was like, ‘Son, once I found out it was you, I stopped shooting!’ I said: ‘Well, what about?’ When we were leaving, something kept flying at us,” Oleksandr described the alleged conversation to TSN.
His father was later reportedly killed following an attack that allegedly involved Ukrainian drones. “They said he apparently died… He burned up in the tank. Our FPV (drones) were finishing him up, so he just burned up in it. Nothing, that was his fate,” Oleksandr testified in his Bradley.
19-year-old Oleksandr, commander of M2 Bradley, faced his father who served in the occupier army’s tank during the early days of the counter-offensive. pic.twitter.com/JRFpTq8m7o
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) February 7, 2024
According to TSN, he still commands an infantry fighting vehicle in the defense of Avdijivka, and according to the TV station, despite his young age, he is to be considered one of the most experienced members of the Bradley crew. However, the American news website Newsweek, which drew attention to the report, was unable to confirm what fate befell Oleksandr’s father or other details about the son himself.
American Bradley M2 infantry fighting vehicles are used exclusively by the Ukrainian 47th Mechanized Brigade and are very successful in engagements with Russian tanks. Ukraine claims that Russia has lost over 6,300 tanks and nearly 12,000 armored vehicles since the start of its large-scale aggressive invasion. However, neither Russia nor Ukraine disclose their own losses of technology. However, some analysts, according to Newsweek, claim that the Ukrainian estimate may be close to the real number.
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