Russia is now using the GAZ-69, a four-wheel-drive Soviet truck first produced in 1952, for frontline combat in Ukraine.
Photos recently posted by open-source outlets, taken near the front lines, show several of these 3,500-pound, unarmored trucks in use, with at least one covered in anti-drone netting.
/2. More 75-year-old GAZ-69 in Russian service. pic.twitter.com/bkwMKuUjMf
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) March 28, 2025
Forbes reported that one of the trucks was struck by a first-person-view drone operated by the Ukrainian Abwehr Gruppe drone team, part of the 81st Air Mobile Brigade, during a recent operation near Bilohorivka in eastern Ukraine.
According to the Abwehr Gruppe drone team, other vehicles in the same Russian column were also attacked. “No one arrived, no one reached [Ukrainian positions],” the team said.
Russia has lost over 20,000 armored and heavy vehicles since the war began in 2022, exceeding the entire vehicle inventory of the British military, which stands at around 18,000. As losses mount, Russia has increasingly turned to civilian vehicles for both logistics and frontline combat roles.
SOFX earlier reported that Russian forces have been using Ladas, agricultural tractors, and even horses and donkeys for combat and to transport equipment to the front lines.
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Russian forces are now using donkeys on a much larger scale to transport goods, including ammunition, to the frontlines. pic.twitter.com/3XFgBFHseg— ConflictLive 💬 (@conflict_live) February 6, 2025
“The arrival of the aged off-road vehicles is the latest evidence of the Russian military’s accelerating de-mechanization,” Forbes war correspondent David Axe noted in his report.
Although Russia still outnumbers Ukraine in both manpower and total vehicle count, Axe emphasized that relying on outdated vehicles like the GAZ-69 severely limits its operational effectiveness.
“De-mechanized Russian regiments might overwhelm and push back Ukrainian brigades under certain circumstances. But realistically, these hollowed-out regiments can’t exploit the resulting gaps in Ukrainian defenses,” he noted.
