Video shows Russian tank suffers ‘catastrophic’ explosion

Footage has gone viral of a Russian tank exploding on the southern sector of the front line in Ukraine, apparently in the southeast of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Open source intelligence site Osint Technical posted the 15-second clip on X (formerly Twitter), which, as of Saturday morning, had been viewed more than 435,000 times. News week has not yet been able to verify or date the images.

Drone footage shows a static tank in a field next to an intersection, which suddenly explodes. The frame pans back, showing smoke billowing into the sky.

Osint technique posted a second video that shows the explosion from a different angle, further away. It gives the coordinates of the explosion 47.449291 and 35.793038, located in the Polohy district, west of Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia oblast.

“Robotyne, catastrophic firing of Russian T-72B3 ammo and turret launch,” is the message next to the video. Ukraine announced on August 28 that it had recaptured the town of Robotyne during its counter-offensive.

Cooking occurs when unfired weapon ammunition explodes prematurely due to environmental heat. This can refer to the detonation of unloaded ammunition in a weapon, as well as the unintentional firing of an overheated loaded weapon.

The Soviet-era T-72B3 is Russia’s most important tank, and since the start of the full-scale invasion of Moscow, 580 Russian-owned military vehicles have been destroyed. This is revealed by the site Oryx, which tallies losses on both sides using video and photographic evidence.

News week contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment. We were unable to verify the number of Russian military vehicles destroyed; neither Moscow nor kyiv publishes such figures.

Other dramatic video footage was also released on Saturday, apparently from the occupied Zaporizhzhia region.

Drone footage shows an unmanned aerial vehicle flying towards a building in the village of Skelki, Vasilievsky district. The site had been used to store ballots and documents, pro-Ukrainian Eastern European media outlet Nexta reported, citing Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency.

“After the explosions, the occupiers cordoned off nearby streets, started controlling people and took off their drones,” Nexta said.

It appears that kyiv’s goal was to sabotage regional elections throughout the country. These include those of the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow would have annexed, even if it does not fully occupy them.

The elections in the oblasts of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk constitute an attempt by the Kremlin to consolidate its control – both military and political – over the four regions of Ukraine occupied by Moscow, Moscow time reported.

A year after widely contested referendums in the regions, an anonymous Russian official told the outlet that the polls were intended to legitimize authorities and show that people in those territories align with Russia.