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Last edited Wed Apr 16, 2014, 01:38 PM - Edit history (1)

All three are SMALL Armored Personal Carriers designed for Airborne units. One looked like it had a 30mm cannon, which would make it a BMD-2. The other's I can NOT make out the turret's armament, but that would be consistent with BMD-1's very short barrel 73mm gun. In another video they had a brief view of the "Cannon" on one of the Vehicles, it looked like about 3 inch in diameter, which would be consisted with being a 73mm cannon on a BMD-1:

The Ukraine had 120 BMP-1s (Crew 2, can haul 5 infantrymen) in 2006 and 78 BMD-2s in 2005 (Crew 3, can haul five infantrymen)

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/bmd-1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMD-1#Operators

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/bmd-2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMD-2#Operators

The "Tank" appears in some video to be a 2S9 Anona (Anemone)- 120mm SPH/Mortar, It also uses a BMD derived chassis so is an Airborne support weapon. Could be used as a "Tank" but lack the armor of a true tank AND the gun it carries has no where near the fire power of a tank:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/2s9.htm

Being Tracked vehicle, without support elements, useless in about 2-3 weeks (Tracks are the biggest limitation after fuel, Tracks last less then 2000 miles on average).

Side Note on Tracks: The US came out with Tracks that used rubber to connect the metal parts during WWII. These last about 2000 miles, while the older steel to steel connected tracks lasted about 500 miles. The Russians hated the American Tracks, reporting that they did NOT give proper traction in mud, snow or ice and during WWII would replace the US tracks with their own metal tracks. There have been no major change in how to make tracks since WWII (some improvements but the advantages and disadvantages of both are about the same to this day). I go with the 2000 miles mark, just to be on the safe side.

Thus I can NOT say how long will these tracked vehicles be usable, but sooner or later they will need to be worked on and all I saw was one truck to support them.

The big difference between the BMD-2 and the BMD-1 is their main armament. The BMD-1 used a 73mm smooth bore cannon to provide fire support. It is a marginal weapon and was replaced in the BMD-2 with a 30mm high velocity auto cannon. The 30mm is the premium Anti-aircraft weapon of the last years of the Soviet Union and of Russia today. The 30mm also has the ability to penetrate anything in armor, including the US M2 Bradly, except for Armor used in Main Battle Tanks (Such as the M1). The down side is its barrel life expectancy is about 2000 rounds (through it would be higher in a ground based weapon, air borne weapons tend to be made lighter and thus wear out faster then heavier ground based versions of the same weapon).

The 73 mm cannon is smooth bore and thus has a much longer life expectancy (it may be in thousands o round given it is smooth bore AND low velocity, I have NOT round across any life expectancy for it). I suspect the main reason the BMD-1 is still is use in both the Ukrainian and Russia armies is that its 73 mm cannon does not wear out and thus usable for decades. On the other hand, the 73 mm has limited range, no Anti-aircraft capacity, and limited anti-Armor capacity.

I can see an airborne unit putting one or two BMP-2s in units armed with BMP1s, just to provide them with increase AA capacity. Thus the mixing of types does not surprise me. A typical Soviet Armor Company consisted of 10 tanks, broken into platoons of three tanks each (with one tank as Company headquarters tank). This is much smaller then a Western Tank Company (17 tanks to a Company, Five to a Platoon with two tanks as Company Headquarters). How much the Airborne units follow this pattern I do not know.

On the other hand the BMD series were designed to carry only five men internally, unlike the larger BMP and BTR series of Soviet/Russian Armor Infantry vehicles. The number of men on each vehicle implies either a bigger breakdown in the discipline in the Ukrainian Army then the Ukraine is willing to admit or people in town getting on the vehicles for a ride. I suspect the former, but the later can not be dismissed. I can see a Company, being reduced to five vehicles do to lack of parts (the Ukraine has a history of not maintaining its military vehicles) defecting. That would explain the lack of vehicles (they took the best five out of the ten assigned to them) and put everyone else on top of the vehicles to defect. Thus this may be a whole company of Airborne troops (100 or more men) not just five vehicles and their Crew (35 men).