 Russian troops assaulted Avdeevka in 70-year-old vehicles. Russian troops involved in Moscow's disastrous attempt to retake the Ukrainian town of Avdeevka were sent into battle in obsolete 70-year-old vehicles. Photos of the battle wreckage suggest, according to the Kiev post-media outlet. Independent open-source analysts have recorded at least one destroyed BTR-50, a Soviet-era armored personnel carrier developed in 1952, production of the vehicle stopped in 1970. It is noted that the BTR-50 is thinly armored by modern standards, protected by at most 13 mm of cold welded steel, insufficient protection from modern anti-tank weapons. And its flat hull does nothing to deflect blasts from mines. Modern armored personnel carriers usually combine a steel hull with modular composite armor and have a V-shaped hull to deflect mine blasts. The fact that the BTR-50 spotted near Avdeevka is upside down with a large hull visible suggests it may have hit a mine. The fate of its occupants, it can carry up to 20 troops is unknown but given the damage, the prognosis isn't positive. The BTR-50 saw notable service in the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, both pitting Israel against surrounding Arab states that were supplied by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and then Russia developed more modern APCs in subsequent years, but as the war in Ukraine dragged on and Moscow's material losses mounted, the Kremlin has increasingly had to rely on outdated military vehicles and tanks to plug the gaps.