A video released by pro-Russian separatists from eastern Ukraine shows for the first time an alleged attack using the feared TOS-1A thermobaric rocket system against positions in Mariupol, the port under fierce Russian siege.
That the TOS-1A was on the ground in Ukraine was known since the beginning of the conflict, but so far there have been no reports of its use. The video clearly shows a battery painted with the Z that signals, with other letters, the invading forces.
It is loaded, travels along a road, is positioned and fires. But there is no way to know if where and when the shooting took place. The images of explosions at the end of the video, with the right to Russian nationalist music, are not original: they were in another recording of a test with the TOS-1A of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The piece began to circulate on Sunday (20) and was shown by Russian state network RT. Other videos taken by people claiming to be close to Mariupol show large areas of fire on the outskirts of a city.
If the attack has taken place, it elevates the brutality of the toughest siege of the war thus far. The TOS-1A is the most destructive non-nuclear weapon in the Russian arsenal. Moscow had no comment.
It employs thermobaric rockets, which upon explosion scatter a cloud of combustible particles into the air, which are then ignited by a secondary charge. The result is a gigantic fireball that sucks in all the air around it and then expands, wreaking havoc through both temperature and pressure wave.
People in the direct area of ​​impact can be vaporized and buildings can be completely destroyed. The weapons began to be developed in World War II by Nazi Germany, but were only used on a large scale by the Americans in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and during the occupation of Afghanistan (2001-2021).
The Russians used the TOS-1A and other variants also in their occupation of the South Asian country (1979-89) and in the first Chechen war (1994-96). The American “Mother of All Bombs” and the Russian “Father of All Bombs” are thermobaric.
Russia had confirmed that it had shipped TOS-1A batteries to Ukraine, but not its use. According to the UK Ministry of Defence, the weapon has already been used, but there was no record of it so far or independent confirmation.
