BMD-4 Sadovnytsia

The BMD-4M (Airborne Combat Vehicle-4) is a combat tracked amphibious vehicle designed for transporting personnel of airborne troops, enhancing their mobility, armament, and protection on the battlefield. It can be deployed by parachute, parachute-jet, or landing method. The weapon system is developed by the Tula Instrument Design Bureau. The BMD-4 is based on the BMD-3 (“Bakhcha”) and is produced in series at the Kurgan Machine-Building Plant.

The crew consists of 3 persons and 5 paratroopers.

The main armament is the 100mm 2A70 gun, which also serves as a launcher for the “Arkan” guided missiles capable of penetrating armor up to 750mm thick. For close combat, it is equipped with a 30mm automatic gun 2A-72 and one PKT-M machine gun. The armor is anti-bullet and made of a new strong aluminum alloy. The vehicle is not designed for direct engagement with tanks, so its weak armor is compensated for by its firepower and high mobility.The vehicle does not engage in open confrontation with tanks.

It is actively used by the russian side during the russian invasion of Ukraine. However, some of the captured vehicles were transferred to the Ukrainian military after inspection.

One of the captured BMD-4s was sent for repair to one of the enterprises of UkrOboronProm.

Another BMD-4M vehicle, along with a relatively rare RPG-30, was captured in Luhansk region by the soldiers of the 24th Separate Mechanized Brigade named after King Danylo in early June 2022.

As of early June 2022, Oryx website editors were able to identify photo and video evidence of the destruction of over 40 BMD-4M vehicles, which is approximately 10% of the entire fleet of these vehicles in the russian army (about 350 units). As of August 24, photo and video evidence showed that russia had lost 53 BMD-4M units during the invasion of Ukraine.