FACT CHECK: Are American-Made Bradleys In Kursk?

The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have destroyed an American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) in Kursk.

🇷🇺 More Ukrainian Armed Forces equipment was destroyed by Russian Armed Forces in the Kursk region.
An American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, a Cossack armored vehicle, and an armored personnel carrier were destroyed.#Kursk #россия pic.twitter.com/PzCjFDJ5Q5

— Chiara Z 🇷🇺 (@chiara_russkiy) August 8, 2024

Verdict: Misleading

The vehicle in the video appears to be a German-made Marder IFV, not a Bradley. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has not seen any evidence of Bradleys in Kursk.

Fact Check:

Ukraine’s surprise assault on Kursk has seen dozens of Russian towns and villages come under its control, according to The New York Times. Ukraine’s advancement into Russia has slowed in recent days, though they have still made gains, the outlet reported.

The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to show a Bradley IFV being destroyed by a drone strike. The video shows a drone strike on an armored fighting vehicle (AFV). (RELATED: No, Video Of A Patriot Launcher Is Not From Ukraine)

This claim is misleading. The AFV in the video appears to be a Marder, not a Bradley. Oryx, a military analysis website that tracks vehicle losses in the Russian-Ukrainian war, has listed the vehicle as a Marder in its page on Ukrainian military losses.

This is likely a Marder, not a Bradley. It’s grainy but the Marder has a less pronounced slope, the turret isn’t as beefy. We’ve seen no other evidence of Bradleys in the Kursk direction. https://t.co/0slz1S5I3x pic.twitter.com/k6gXajHkjV

— Elias Atienza (@AtienzaElias) August 13, 2024

Kendrick Frankel, a communications associate with ISW, told Check Your Fact that there is no evidence of Bradleys in Kursk.

“We’ve not seen any verified visual evidence of Bradleys operating in Kursk, and the unit that we know to operate Bradleys (Ukraine’s 47th Brigade) is not in Kursk but in Pokrovsk, which is where we continue to see confirmed footage of Bradleys,” Frankel said and pointed to several Russian military bloggers making the same claims about Bradleys in Kursk.

“But our assessment is that the milbloggers are either mistaken or sowing disinformation by calling everything the Russians kill a Bradley for propaganda purposes until visual confirmation proves otherwise. We have seen German (Marders) and other US vehicles (Strykers) in Kursk that Russian media has misreported as Bradleys, however,” Frankel said.

The 47th Mechanized Brigade has been the sole known Ukrainian unit to receive Bradleys, according to Newsweek. The brigade posted on Telegram a video of them evacuating troops in the Pokrovsk region, which is the Donbas.

Video from Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade showing a Bradley IFV extracting infantry after a DPICM strike on advancing Russian infantry. The post says Russia has not massively redeployed from the Pokrovsk front and their main force remains in the Donbas.… pic.twitter.com/p2i8elasFv

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) August 18, 2024

Check Your Fact has found no evidence of Bradleys being used in Kursk. We rate this claim misleading.