A Ukraine battlefield video appears to show a US-made MaxxPro armored vehicle resisting a series of direct Russian blasts.
Despite experiencing at least three powerful explosions, the MaxxPro can be seen successfully weaving its way along a dirt track. The episode occurred in Chasiv Yar area in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, reports said, where fighting between Russia and Ukraine has been intense in recent months.
While some were killed as they attempted to flee, others managed to escape in a MaxxPro despite facing heavy artillery fire.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said on X that the robust MaxxPro was being attacked with mortar and drone strikes.
Business Insider could not independently verify where or when the footage was taken.
The MaxxPro, designed by Navistar Defense and the Israeli company Plasan Sasa, is part of the US Military’s Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) program.
Ex-Design Director for Plasan Nir Kahn wrote on X, alongside the footage of the vehicle under fire, “I’m very proud of my involvement in the design of the Navistar MaxxPro MRAP. It’s saved thousands of lives, now in Ukraine too.”
The MaxxPro was built to help protect soldiers in Iraq from improvised explosive devices, according to Navistar Defense‘s website.
It has a “V-shaped” hull that deflects blasts away from the crew and is designed “to withstand ballistic arms fire, mine blasts, IEDs, and other emerging threats.”
The vehicle has a seating capacity for 12 personnel. Its single turret houses a 7.62 or 12.7 mm machine gun and space for one gunner, Navistar says.
Last year, the US announced that it would send 200 vehicles to Ukraine as part of a military aid package. The vehicles have since proved crucial to Ukraine’s war effort.
In June last year, soldiers from Ukraine’s 68th Jaeger Brigade became stranded as they tried to advance in the village of Blahodatne in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region.
“The MaxxPros are like a red rag to the Russians. They target it with everything they have,” Stepan, a Ukrainian fighter, told The Times. “But they are almost indestructible.”
One of the vehicles was hit by shelling and another by mortars, but “everyone inside survived. They truly saved our soldiers’ lives,” Stepan said.
Dutch open-source intelligence website Oryx puts visually confirmed Ukrainian M1224 MaxxPro losses at 90.
