Drone video released by Ukrainian troops shows a modified Russian BTR-80 with a UMZ or PKM remote mine-laying system attached to it. They promptly destroy the abandoned vehicle which was ironically disabled after it struck a Ukrainian land-mine.

From this video alone, it's impossible to tell exactly what brand of remote mine-laying equipment is affixed to the BTR-80 shown in the video. It's entirely possible that it could be one of the more modern PKM portable mine scattering systems that are commonly affixed to the back of vehicles, but we can't be sure of that from this video alone.

While many things in war are problematic, these remote mine scattering systems are some of the worst things out there. They rely on unconventionally mining an area with a myriad of Russian systems ranging from the PTM-3 to the PFM-1S to inflict a great amount of psychological damage on the Russian's enemies. What's worse, is that the Russians rely heavily on landmines in their warfighting doctrine, often remotely deploying scatterable mine systems during the course of a battle to retain the element of surprise against enemy combatants.

What's problematic about this is that there is no conventional pattern to the mines, and the Russians are often incapable of tracking the number of mines they've emplaced in an area. They rely entirely on the system's fail safes to self-detonate, but as we've learned from a large number of locations that the Russians have mined in the past, those self-detonation fail safes often do not work as intended. As a result, tens to hundreds of thousands of mines can be left in an area for decades after a war has completed.

For those of you that are curious, there's an awesome article about this subject written by Dorian D'Aria and Lester W. Grau in the The Red Thrust Star. The article was published in 1996, and it was called Instant Obstacles - Russian Remotely Delivered Mines. I could go more in-depth here on the subject, but I think it might be a bit dry for a majority of our viewers. Clicking this link will download the article directly to whatever device you're reading from.

About the Author

Josh Brooks

Josh is an American writer and former USMC machine gunner with eight years of experience in ground combat arms throughout the GWOT. He is currently based in Texas and specializes in combat footage analysis and digital marketing.Follow Josh at OfficialJoshBrooks.com