The Ukrainian military brought to the battlefield “ancient” artillery, which is known only in the museum, and not in the military warehouses of Ukraine.

Administrators of the Ukraine Weapons Tracker page note that the “ancient but powerful” 240 mm M-240 mortar was seen in action for the first time.

“It is interesting that the M-240 model was not known in Ukrainian warehouses, but a mortar of this type was exhibited in a museum in Kyiv,” they note.

The M-240 mortar, which entered service with the Soviet armed forces in the 1950s, is believed to have been used for the first time on the battlefield during the Yom Kippur War, when it was used by the Syrian army, Russia’s traditional ally in the Middle East, against Israeli forces.

Later, such mortars were also used during the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, the Libyan civil war and, more recently, the Syrian civil war, during which they were used by the forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Before the appearance of this photo in social networks, it was believed that only 4 countries in the world have M-240 mortars: Russia, Bulgaria, Syria and Egypt. Romania also had a small number of M-240 mortars, which it destroyed in 1995.

Ukraine Weapons Tracker also notes that, despite the age of the weapon, Ukraine’s arsenal had an impressive amount of 240mm ammunition to fire these mortars. Although many of these 240 mm shells have been decommissioned, the rest are now in front-line use.

Museum exhibits and “dinosaurs” that were used during the war in Ukraine

This is not the first very old weapon that has been spotted in the arms of the Ukrainian military since the beginning of the “special operation” on February 24. Perhaps the most famous of them is the Maxim M1910 machine gun, created more than 100 years ago, when Ukraine was still part of the tsarist empire.

The machine gun was introduced to the battlefields in 1910, being the Russian version of the first truly automatic machine gun, patented in 1883 by the American-British inventor Hiram Maxim.

A video posted on social media in May shows Ukrainian territorial troops training with the kind of machine gun used by the Russian Imperial Army during World War I and the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.

Another video, also shared on social networks in May, showed that the Russians, in turn, retrieved from the mothballs a weapon with a long history – obsolete Soviet T-62 tanks.

Military analyst Chris Owen explained at the time that this “dinosaur” is inferior in all respects to more modern Russian/Soviet tanks, its production has been discontinued since 1975.

Several photos shared by the Ukrainian military in mid-September showed that they had managed to capture such a tank, most likely during the Kharkiv Offensive, which led to the collapse of the Russian front in that region in the northeast of their country.

The tank turned out to be in decent condition, considering its age (entered service with the Soviet Army in 1961) and the fact that it had been in combat.

Follow the latest events of the 218th day of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HOTNEWS.RO.