It’s been several months since Russia started the process of deploying its military vehicles from different corners of Russia to Rostov Oblast and further on to the Ukrainian Donbas. On November 2, a part of this potential separatists’ metal scrap was displayed in Luhansk, where the easily recognized T-72 tanks were demonstrated along with other kinds of vehicles that would be non-typical for the Ukrainian Military Forces and therefore impossible to explain away as trophies.

I have already provided a clear and detailed explanation of who transported Russian weapons and how it was done. However let’s go back to this subject to add some depth and more photo evidence.

Since the end of summer and until now, along with other Russian logistics troops, the deployment of heavy weapons and tanks across some of the uncontrolled sectors of the Russian border with Ukraine involved motor detachments of the units that belonged to the Southern Military District (license plates with the district index ’21’):

• 474th separate motor battalion of heavy trucks (military unit No. 33027, Millerovo, Rostov Oblast, Russia).
• Motor battalions of the 78th brigade of material and technical support (military unit No. 11384, 58th army, Budyonnovsk, Stavropol krai, Russia)
• 99th brigade of material and technical support of 49th army (military unit No. 72153, Maykop, Republic of Adygeya, Russia).

The following vehicles were observed among the deployed equipment:

• The Russian organic Т-90 and Т-72 tanks, as well as the out-of-service T-64.
• Infantry fighting vehicles.
• Airborne fighting vehicles (including infantry vehicles, ‘Nona-S’ self-propelled mortars, and ‘Sprut-SD’ self-propelled guns).
• ‘Msta-S’ self-propelled mortars.
• Many others vehicles, with some of them found in Donbas as metal scrap, destroyed by the Ukrainian army.
  

To learn more about the deployment of Russian vehicles, we would recommend checking the following materials:

• ‘Truckers’ from ‘Rublevka’ – 147th Automotive Logistic Support Battalion
• Haul. Experts with encyclopedic knowledge (in Russian)
• “Donetsky Espress” – identification of Russian vehicles and weapons deployed to Donbas  (in Russian)
• The process of deployment of Russian weapons and vehicles to Donbass: how it works and what is delivered there. (in Russian)

Original article by Irakly Komakhidze, translated by Roman Vlasov