When A 70-Year-Old Russian BTR-50 Attacks Ukrainian Troops, It’s Bad News For The Whole Russian War Effort

The thinly-protected, 1950s-vintage BTR-50 might not be the worst vehicle the Russian army has sent in a direct assault on Ukrainian positions, but it’s probably the oldest.

And while it’s safer for Russian troops to ride in a 70-year-old BTR-50 with its 10-millimeter-thick armor than to ride in, say, a brand-new Chinese golf cart, it’s still an ominous sign for Russia that more BTR-50s are appearing on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds toward its 28th month.

“Without mechanized units fully equipped with proper combat vehicles like tanks, achieving swift and decisive penetration of defenses will be very challenging,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight explained. “This limitation is likely to result in slower and more limited advances, hampering the overall progress of Russian forces.”

The BTR-50 is a 15-ton, diesel-fueled armored tractor with two crew and space for up to 20 passengers. It usually packs a heavy machine gun.

The Soviet Union developed the BTR-50 in the early 1950s. It entered service in 1954 and, for the next 12 years, was the Soviet army’s main fighting vehicle. BTR-50 crews would haul soldiers into battle, protect them as they dismounted and then support them with its machine gun.

The BTR-50 is lightly-armed and thinly-armored by even 1960s standards, however. When the heavier, and more heavily-armed, BMP-1 debuted in 1966, thousands of BTR-50s cascaded to second-line units. The BTRs hauled artillery, engineers and anti-aircraft guns until MT-LB tractors began displacing the older vehicles from those roles, too.

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