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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    3 months ago

    Obliterating a large chunk of landscape and killing countless people because its cheaper than doing hardware maintenance does sound like a US Military tier move.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      I mean, yeah, but I think that’s placing the US military on a pedestal, with the unsaid implication that they’re somehow unique in that regard.

      I don’t imagine there’s many, if any, military forces on earth, who would both be used to invade and occupy foreign lands, and not make similar decisions.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Biggest Military In The World is going to have more of this shit and be in more places where they can casually detonate an 18 kiloton bomb.

        The “uniquely American” angle is more just the consequence of our size and the number of theaters of conflict we’re active in. I don’t imagine there’s many, if any, military forces on earth that could operate at this scale for the last 80 years.