Syrian Rebels Film Themselves Hitting a Russian Tank With U.S. Missile

On Friday, Syrian rebels posted a video of themselves striking a Russian T-90 battle tank with an American made TOW missile, in a suburb just north of Aleppo. Though this isn’t the first time the rebels have posted this kind of video (in fact, making these videos is often a US government stipulation for receiving these weapons), this particular video is unique, in that there is no known footage of a TOW missile being used against a T-90 tank.

The tanks were initially seen defending the Lakatia air base in September, but more recent reports revealed that Russia had loaned some of them to the Syrian military. Though it appears that the missile failed to penetrate the tank’s reactive armor, the crew can be seen bailing out anyway. The tank is typically equipped with a shtora, which is an electro-optical device designed to disrupt TOW missiles before they reach their target, but in this case it seems to have failed or wasn’t turned on.