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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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A Russian state television guest has appeared visibly distressed after a Kremlin propagandist suggested using thermobaric weapons, after speaking of bombing Ukrainian cities.
Vasyl Vakarov, described as a political commentator in a clip posted by journalist Julia Davis to Twitter, told the gathered state television guests that he is in "shock" at the suggestion of targeting the major Ukrainian hubs of Kyiv and Odesa.
"I am against this, I don't see this as a solution," he told state host Vladimir Solovyov in the excerpt of a broadcast aired on the Russia-1 television channel.
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Solovyov, a known ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who has echoed Kremlin rhetoric around the Ukraine war, then refers to the "Solntsepek" thermobaric weapon launcher.
Also known as the TOS-1A, the weapons launched by the "Solntsepek" use oxygen to create a high-temperature explosion before igniting a second charge. Also referred to as "vacuum bombs," thermobaric weapons, such as those launched by the TOS-1A, can have a "devastating impact," the British Defense Ministry said in March last year.
Vakarov visibly shook his head at Solovyov's comment, adding: "I think there has to be another way, this is wrong."
Newsweek has reached out to Russia's Defense Ministry for comment via email.
Western analysts have said that Russia has deployed the TOS-1A in Ukraine since the early days of full-scale war from February 2022. It is an armored, multiple rocket launcher that is built on the chassis of a Russian main battle tank, and has previously been used in Afghanistan and Chechnya, among other conflict zones.
The TOS-1A is "designed to suppress a whole variety of covered and open targets with thermobaric rockets," according to Russian state military exporter Rosoboronexport. The launcher has a maximum range of 5.6 miles, according to Russian state media.
Russian sources said on Monday that Russia's airborne units had received deliveries of the TOS-1A for the first time, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank wrote on Monday.
Writing on Telegram on Monday, Russia's Defense Ministry said the TOS-1A was a "weapon that causes panic," adding that paratroopers from the southwestern Saratov region heading for Ukraine had received the "latest" version of the "Solntsepek."
"You are being given a formidable weapon, which has no equal in the arsenals of the collective West and which induces panic in our enemies," Russian Colonel Aleksey Goncharov was quoted as saying by the Defense Ministry.
However, the TOS-1 system "is unlikely to lend Russian troops a decisive offensive advantage" for operations, possibly carried out in the eastern Luhansk region of Ukraine, the ISW said.
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