KRAMATORSK, Ukraine – Russia has liberally used one of its most feared conventional weapons in fighting in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian military commanders, medics, British officials and battlefield videos.
The weapon, mounted on the runway by a missile artillery system nicknamed Solntsepek or Heatwave, fires thermobaric warheads that explode with enormous force, sending potentially deadly shock waves into bunkers or trenches where soldiers would otherwise be safe.
“You can feel the ground shaking,” said Colonel Yevhen Shamatalyuk, commander of Ukraine’s 95th Brigade, whose soldiers were shot at by Russian Heatwave weapons in battles this month near the town of Izyum.
“This is very destructive,” said Colonel Shamatalyuk. “It destroys bunkers. They just fall over those inside. “
The United States and other military also have thermobaric warheads in missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. And the Ukrainian army said on April 5 that it had fired Heatwave thermobaric missiles from a captured system back against Russian troops, intending to burn them with its own weapons in battles near Izyum.
Thermobaric weapons are not banned and are not covered by the Geneva Conventions, a series of international agreements governing the war. The Russian military deployed the Heatwave weapon in the Syrian war, but its use in Ukraine has become systematic, according to the Ukrainian military and videos of strikes on cities in eastern Ukraine.
Such explosives, also called fuel-air bombs or vacuum bombs, disperse flammable mists or dust, which are then ignited and burned in the air. The result is a powerful explosion, followed by a partial vacuum, as oxygen is sucked out of the air as the fuel burns.
Ukrainian soldiers who were caught in the blasts and survived received a mixture of burns and concussions, a sergeant said. Anna Federchuk, an ambulance doctor based in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, who treated victims of hot flashes.
“It’s a mixed diagnosis,” she said of the typical victim of a heat wave explosion. “The burns are deep and heavy.”
Russian weapons carry a box of missiles on a chain vehicle, similar to a tank. It can fire single missiles or a terrifying volley. However, like many Russian weapons used in the war in Ukraine, the Heatwave system may not be as effective or decisive in battle as Russian military propaganda suggested.
Developed in the 1980s and once seen as a great and dangerous invention of the late Soviet military, the Heatwave, officially known as the Tos-1 heavy flamethrower, has drawbacks.
With a range of only six miles, he has to drive close to the front to shoot. There he was vulnerable to Ukrainian ambushes. In March, a drone video showed Ukrainian soldiers detonating weapons with a heat wave during an ambush in the Kiev suburb of Brovary.
The impact on the vehicle sent his missiles into the column of Russian armored vehicles, although it was unclear whether they had been destroyed.
Using them near the front also allowed Ukraine to seize some of the weapons. Videos have surfaced online that allegedly show Ukrainian tractor drivers pulling captured Heatwave weapons away from the front. Ukrainian soldiers claim on social media that they have seized five of the weapons systems as trophies.
The Ukrainian military also said the Russians had suffered friendly fire incidents as it dispersed highly destructive but unguided missiles.
“The leadership of the 97th Infantry Battalion expresses satisfaction with the actions of the Russian occupiers,” the Ukrainian army said in a sarcastic statement on May 8 after what they said was a friendly fire in the Zaporozhye region that killed Russian soldiers. “Such actions are received positively and are supported in every way by the Ukrainian military. We understand that there is a tradition to prepare skewers in May.
Maria Varenikova participates in the report.
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