You don’t have to be James Bond to call a Russian support line and get help troubleshooting issues with the tank you captured and plan to use against its invading forces
October 4, 2023 at 12:00
A Ukrainian officer with the call sign Kochevnik posted a video of himself apparently calling the support line for Russian tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod in order to help fix one of their tanks that had been captured by Ukrainian forces, and whose build quality he complained about at length.
While it is not clear if the phone conversation is legitimate, or a propaganda stunt, Kochevnik told the support person that he was experiencing problems with his T-72B3 tank, a model used widely by the Russian military. He ran through a series of complaints, including that the tank was spewing oil and had faulty compressors, and a bad electric turret rotation mechanism, meaning that the crew had to turn it with a hand crank.
The model is one of Russia’s more modern tanks, with which Ukrainian forces would not have been intimately acquainted before the invasion, reports Forbes. Without any local mechanics able to help, Kochevnik turned to the factory helpline and actually got help.
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Read: Ukraine Says Citizens Don’t Have To Declare Captured Russian Tanks On Their Taxes
Kochevnik, who at first identified himself only as the “commander of an armor group,” succeeded in convincing the Russian helpline technician that he was a Russian. Such was the deception that the worker promised that he would bring the concerns to the company’s design bureau.
Per the video, Kochevnik even got a Uralvagonzavod director on the line. This employee asked the commander to send a WhatsApp message with his complaints, which is when he revealed that he was actually Ukrainian.
“When we take more of these tanks as our trophies, make them better so that it will be easier for us to operate them. Agreed? Thank you very much. Take care of yourselves. Glory to Ukraine,” he said, per Insider.
One of many tanks captured by Ukrainian forces, estimates suggest that Russia had around 3,000 operational tanks when it launched its invasion and that it has since lost at least 2,329 of those.
