Kremlin displays Australian-made Bushmasters as ‘trophies’ in Moscow
By Rob Harris
London: Australian-made Bushmaster armoured vehicles captured by the Russian army have been put on display in central Moscow as part of the Kremlin’s Western war trophies alongside signs that read: “Our victory is inevitable!”
The military equipment from Australia, as well as a British Saxon armoured personnel carrier and an American Bradley tank captured during the war in Ukraine, is being shown off at an open-air exhibition in the city’s Victory Park district.
A blast-damaged Bushmaster vehicles in Moscow in a display from the Kremlin of its trophies seized on the Ukrainian battlefields.Credit:
The month-long propaganda exercise comes ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s May 9 military parade on Red Square for the country’s annual Victory Day celebration to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany. Putin is also set to be inaugurated for a fifth presidential term at a glittering Kremlin ceremony two days before.
The federal government has sent more than 100 Bendigo-made vehicles as military aid to Ukrainian forces – each worth up to $2.4 million. Those paraded by the Russians are thought to have been destroyed between Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Some of the gutted and blast-damaged Bushmasters still bear Australian flags.
Several estimates have at least 12 Bushmasters destroyed in the past 18 months and several more damaged by Russian kamikaze drones.
Victory Park is an open-air museum in the Russian capital created to commemorate the defeat of the Nazis in 1945 (when Russia was allied with the US and UK) but in recent years it has become a homage to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, celebrating claimed successes “against Ukrainian militants and their Western supporters”.
A Russian soldier guards an exhibition of tanks, vehicles and guns captured from Ukrainian armed forces and on display near the World War II museum in Moscow.Credit: AP
Russia’s Defence Ministry plans to display “more than 30 samples from 12 countries”, including “vehicles and small arms from foreign armies, combat documents, maps, ideological literature, and equipment”.
Footage of the line-up of Western hardware also appear to show British-donated Mastiff and Husky armoured vehicles, the latter adorned with the British and NATO flags. Captured military equipment from Austria, the Czech Republic and Finland can also be seen as well as a German Leopard tank, a Swedish CV90 combat vehicle and a French-made AMX-10RC armoured vehicle.
Unverified video shared by Russian channels also purports to show the wreckage of an American-made Abrams main battle tank that was recently captured in fighting near the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka.
A pro-war Russian Telegram channel said it would be “an excellent idea to leave open free space at the exhibition with a sign reading: ‘The wreckage of the first downed F-16 [fighter jet] will soon lie here’.”
Australia has supplied Bushmaster vehicles to be used by combat medics in the battlefield in eastern Ukraine.
A similar event was held last year at Patriot Park near Moscow, where Russia also showcased a series of captured Western military equipment, likely lost by Ukraine during its northern summer counter-offensive.
Western analysts are downbeat about Ukraine’s chances of driving out Putin’s invading army, despite the recent approval by Washington of the new $US61 billion ($93 billion) aid package for Kyiv, part of a $US95 billion package that also includes aid for Israel and Taiwan.
“Ukraine has no good options, even with the latest aid package,” Eugene Rumer, a former US national intelligence officer, wrote in an article for the Carnegie Endowment think tank.
“It is now abundantly clear that the size of Russia’s population, economy, stocks of military hardware, and defence-industrial base far exceeds those of Ukraine even when it is supported by the United States, Europe, other allies and partners.”
Last week, Defence Minister Richard Marles travelled to Ukraine, announcing a $100 million support package that includes $30 million towards uncrewed aerial systems and $15 million towards combat helmets, inflatable boats, boots, fire masks and generators.
In Kyiv on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his armed force’s ability to hold back Russia depended directly on how quickly its forces received military aid.
“Today I don’t see anything positive on this point yet. There are supplies, they have slightly begun, this process needs to be sped up,” he said.
“The Russian army is now trying to take advantage of a situation when we are waiting for supplies from our partners.”
Zelensky met with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said allies had not delivered what they promised.
“The lack of ammunition has allowed the Russians to push forward along the front line,” he said. “Lack of air defence has made it possible for more Russian missiles to hit their targets, and the lack of deep strike capabilities has made it possible for the Russians to concentrate more forces.”
General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, said on Sunday that Kyiv’s outnumbered and outgunned forces had been pushed back from their positions in the eastern Donetsk region. “The situation at the front has worsened,” he wrote on Telegram.
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