In 2007, the Republic of Georgia bought 15 unique, up-gunned BMP-1U fighting vehicles from Ukraine. A year later, Russia invaded Georgia—and Russian troops apparently captured every single Georgian BMP-1U.
Russian engineers reportedly spent some time inspecting the upgraded BMPs before parking them somewhere. Fifteen years later, the Kremlin recovered some or all of the captured Georgian IFVs, assigned them to a front-line Russian army unit and sent them back into Ukraine.
The BMP-1U already was the subject of a military farce when, earlier this month, at least one of the ex-Georgian ex-Ukrainian vehicles joined a near-suicidal direct assault on Ukrainian positions in and around Avdiivka, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
The panicky crew of one BMP-1U, perhaps correctly sensing it was about to eat a Ukrainian missile, backed up and over Russian infantry sheltering behind the 13-ton, nine-person vehicle, likely severely injuring if not killing at least one soldier.
Seconds later, a Ukrainian anti-tank missile struck the BMP-1U. The explosive punchline to a tragic wartime joke.
Of course the universe would focus its dark humor on the BMP-1U, a vehicle that is as much a symbol of war’s cruel irony as it is a battlefield taxi for mechanized infantry.
The Ukrainian armed forces inherited more than 2,500 BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles from the Soviet army as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The type still is Ukraine’s second-most-numerous IFV after the better-armed BMP-2.
But the BMP-1 has flaws. Big ones. Not only is the BMP-1 lightly-protected with steel armor that’s just a quarter-inch thick, its low-pressure 73-millimeter gun lacks hitting power.
To improve the firepower of some of its BMP-1s—and to make surplus vehicles more valuable on the export market—the Scientific and Technical Center for Artillery and Small Arms in Kyiv swapped out the BMP’s old turret for a new one with a much more powerful 30-millimeter autocannon.
The new, bigger turret displaces two of the BMP-1’s usual eight passenger seats.
Georgia bought 15 of these BMP-1Us from Ukraine and rushed them into service right before Russia invaded the tiny republic in August 2008. Russian troops reportedly quickly captured all 15 of Georgia’s original BMP-1Us.
The vehicles went into storage in Russia. And it’s not hard to understand why. The U-model’s Shkval turret is made from Ukrainian parts. To keep some of the 15 or so BMP-1Us in working order, a BMP company might have to cannibalize the rest of the BMP-1Us.
That the Russians were willing to accept these logistical complications and reactivate the BMP-1Us this year speaks to their desperate need for IFVs. The Russian army widened its war in Ukraine in February 2022 with 400 active BMP-3s, 2,800 BMP-2s and 600 BMP-1s.
In 22 months of hard fighting, the Russians have lost more than 2,000 BMPs of all models, including at least 500 BMP-1s. And the rate of loss has spiked in the five weeks since the Russian 2nd Combined Arms Army launched a major effort to capture Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold just outside Russian-occupied Donetsk city.
Day after day, week after week, the 2nd CAA and other formations have thrown tanks, fighting vehicles and infantry—several brigades’ worth—against deeply dug-in Ukrainian troops from the 110th and 47th Mechanized Brigades and other units.
The Russians have died en masse, leaving behind potentially hundreds of wrecked vehicles as they’ve made at best incremental gains along Avdiivka’s flanks. The fratricidal BMP-1U—made in the Soviet Union, upgraded in Ukraine, sold to Georgia, captured by Russia and then redeployed back to Ukraine—now is bloody scrap on a growing pile of bloody scrap.
All this is not to say the Russian crew of that storied, and doomed, BMP was alone in being afraid and loose with its controls on that battlefield outside Avdiivka. Videos abound depicting jumpy vehicle crews on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war running over their dismounted comrades.
In war, everyone is scared all the time. And the crews of thinly-protected BMPs might be more scared than most. A BMP crew member always is a possible instant from the possible blast that could kill them.
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