Two Russian ‘Grad’ MLRS Blasted By HIMARS

The Ukrainian military successfully destroyed two Russian BM-21 “Grad” MLRS in the south using the American HIMARS artillery rocket system, as announced by the Special Operations Forces (SSO) via a drone video released on Telegram.

“Two enemy Grads have been destroyed. SSO operators continue to perform tasks in all operational directions, inflicting significant losses on the enemy,” read the caption to the footage.

The rocket systems were initially discovered by the soldiers of the 73rd Naval Center of the SSO during routine aerial reconnaissance in the southern direction. Subsequently, they relayed the coordinates to the HIMARS operators.

In the video captured by the Ukrainian drones, the Russian military can be seen positioning the Grads within a forested area before the edited footage reveals their locations being hit with two powerful explosions.

Analysts from Kyiv Post confirmed that the video depicts the destruction of the BM-21 Grad but were unable to independently verify exactly where and when the footage was captured.

The BM-21 Grad MLRS system, which has been almost continuously modernized since its introduction almost 60 years ago, has been widely used by both Ukrainian and Russian forces during the current war.

This highly mobile 122-mm system can rapidly fire volleys of rockets fitted with any of 50 warheads; the most popular being the high-explosive fragmenting projectile.

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Since Russia’s initial incursions in 2014 and the full-scale 2022 invasion, the Russian army has regularly used Grad to bombard Ukrainian defensive positions as well as cities including Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and others in the north, east, and south of Ukraine.

In a separate incident just over a fortnight ago, drones from the 73rd Maritime Center again operating in the southern sector detected another valuable Russian target. Despite the poor visibility at the time, they were able to call in another HIMARS strike which destroyed a Russian Osa (wasp) air defense missile complex.