PICTURES: Ukrainian Military Captured 'Buratino', One of The Deadliest Russian MLRS

Kyiv Post | July 11, 2023, 3:20 pm

Back in 2022, the 67th mechanised brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces successfully captured one of the deadliest Russian heavy thermobaric systems known as "Solntsepek" or "Buratino" (TOS-1A). Now Ukrainian soldiers are using the 'trophy' weapon against Russian forces on the battlefield.

On Friday, July 7, the leader of the "Da Vinci Wolves" battalion, Yuri Kapustyak, reached out to the war reporters, Konstiantyn and Vlada Liberov, and invited them to document the "Buratino" in action, near the front line close to Kreminna in the Luhansk region.

The photographers revealed that the battalion soldiers humorously referred to the captured weapon as the favorite "toy" of their fallen commander, Dmytro Kotsyubailo. Unfortunately, Kotsyubailo tragically died on March 7, 2023, near Bakhmut.

As a tribute to their fallen commander, the soldiers inscribed his call sign "Da Vinci" on the weapon.

The TOS-1 Buratino is a Soviet-era military system that consists of a launcher mounted on a T-72 tank chassis and is capable of firing multiple rockets. The primary destructive force of these missiles lies in the intense overpressure generated when the combustible mixture explodes.

The TOS-1 Buratino saw its first combat tests in the late 1980s during the Soviet-Afghan War. Since then, it has been used in various conflicts by different nations. Due to the large weight of the launcher and the relatively short range of the rockets (3,500 meters or 3,800 yards), the T-72 tank chassis was used to provide additional armor and mobility.