Ukrainian Armed Forces captured the Russian Vityaz DT-30

3 April, 2023 Captured Russian DT-30 armored articulated tracked carrier, April 2023 The Armed Forces of Ukraine captured on the frontline a rare Russian Vityaz DT-30 articulated tracked carrier, which was created specifically for the Arctic environment. The video of the carrier was published on social media.

A carrier's condition on the vid was poor, it got broken, which made it impossible to evacuate on its own move. Currently, this is the first known vehicle of this type to be captured by "one piece" during the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The authors of the video did not indicate exactly where the captured vehicle was, but it is known that in the armed forces of the Russian Federation they entered service with 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade, which is currently fighting near Avdiivka. The last time such equipment fell into the hands of the Defense Forces was in March last year. Then, during one of the raids in the Kharkiv region, one of the tracked all-terrain vehicles was destroyed.

Vityaz DT-30

DT-30 is a two-lane all-terrain vehicle on track, manufactured by the Russian Ishimbai Transport Machine-Building Plant.

It was developed in the Soviet Union specifically to operate in difficult conditions. One of the main tasks of the vehicle is to transport heavy loads in difficult terrain, like swamps, sand and snow in extreme weather conditions. DT-30 weighing 28 tons can transport up to 30 tons of cargo.

It is equipped with a V-46-5 tank diesel engine interchangeable with ?-72? tanks and special vehicles on its chassis, which are common in the post-Soviet armies.

On the basis of the DT-30 chassis, a Tor-M2DT self-propelled anti-aircraft missile system was also developed and adopted by the Russian army for operation in a difficult Arctic environment.

Russian Tor-M2DT air defense system at the rehearsal of the Victory Parade, 2017

During the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Ukrainian Defense Forces managed to destroy two similar rare systems (the first and second) in the Kherson region, presumably belonging to the 80th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces.