Newly released footage shows Russian forces striking a Ukrainian town, using what pro-Kremlin sources have claimed is one of the most potent non-nuclear weapons in the world.

On Tuesday morning, videos began circulating on Russian and Ukrainian media of a “vacuum bomb” being dropped on the town of Vovchansk in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.

Ukrainian news agency InsiderUA posted the video to its Telegram channel, citing Russian military bloggers who said that the bomb was the ODAB-9000, a three-ton glide bomb sometimes referred to as “the father of all bombs.”

A thermobaric or “vacuum” bomb draws in oxygen to generate intense, high-temperature combustions. According to the International Review of the Red Cross, an international law-focused academic journal produced by the humanitarian organization, the use of thermobaric weapons in built-up, civilian areas could constitute a war crime.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Reminds me of the time Trump dumped a M.O.A.B. over Afghanistan shortly after taking office, because he thought it would win the war overnight.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      I can’t speak to Trump’s rationale, but know of at least one instance where a MOAB was substituted for the normal ordinance in theatre because it was approaching it service rated shelf life.

      Explosive ordinance has a shelf life, and once they’re expired, they either need to be taken out of supply for servicing, or dismantled and disposed of.

        • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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          7 hours ago

          No… It risks either not going boom, or some other catastrophic failure like we saw in the early days of the Ukraine war with the S300 and S400 missiles that would U-turn after launch and hit their own launcher, most likely from being improperly stored, not maintained, and/or outside of their rated service life.

    • CptEnder@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      It’s definitely skeptical. The MOAB was designed to literally collapse parts of mountains. This doesn’t really look like a similar result.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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        9 hours ago

        If you can see buildings still standing right next to the blast like this, then it was just a glorified pipe bomb. Dont get me wrong its fucked up anyways, but it just really looks like a fairly tiny explosion.

    • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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      12 hours ago

      Seems either unremarkable/not new or fudged

      Weapons analyst Sascha Lange of German SWP speaking at Deutsche Welle pointed out multiple discrepancies in the released Russian video and expressed his skepticism about the Russian claim

      Same source as you linked.

      Its a big ol thermobaric, which sucks but isn’t ground breaking (except literally lol)