Ukraine has been sending Russian soldiers ‘tens of thousands’ of thermal boot insoles that included 1.5 grams of explosive each. The shipments were camouflaged as humanitarian aid and were carried out through Poland and Belarus with the help of Russian ‘volunteers’ and charitiesas reported this Thursday by the Russian state agency TASS and later confirmed by the Ukrainian defense media Militarnyi with its own sources.
Ukrainian defense sources have confirmed to the latter media that devices hidden inside thermal insoles were sent to Russian military units as part of a covert operation. The first deliveries have already taken place at the beginning of this month of March.
Each template contained 1.5 grams of TNT, making a total of 3 grams on the feet of each soldier to use them to combat the cold. According to the Russian state agency, the detonation occurs ‘when insoles are connected to a power source’. Thermal or heating insoles obtain energy connecting by cable to an external battery worn in the boot or legor with an integrated rechargeable battery that connects to a charger for the necessary time. The purpose of the operation allows us to assume that they correspond to the first type.
TASS talks about the seizure of one of these shipmentsa Russian truck that transported 504 of those templates and was involved in a ‘smuggling channel organized by the Ukrainian special services for supply’. He Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) has stated that the attacks were ‘impeded’ and assured that a foreign citizen was arrested and the explosive insoles were seized. Authorities said the devices were ‘intended to sever part of a soldier’s limb during combat missions’.
According to Militarnyi, the Ukrainian intelligence services managed to create a supply network for the explosive templates. However, the scheme was partially exposed due to the careless actions of one of the participantswhom Ukrainian agencies had been using ‘blindly’. So, the FSB detected one of the shipments which was transported from Poland through Belarus.
‘According to our information, Previous template shipments did their job. FSB agents discovered this shipment only after they began tracing the supply chain. Of course, These few hundred units are just a fraction of our “gifts”’the source tells Militarnyi.
This operation, which is reminiscent of the one Israel carried out in September 2024 against thousands of members of the terrorist group Hezbollah blowing up their pagers, is not the first of its kind in the Ukrainian war. Last February it was learned that a batch of fpv goggles for drones Skyzone Cobra X v4 sent to Russian units contained improvised explosive devices (IEDs) designed to detonate while in use.
Around 80 units were delivered through networks of volunteers, and each contained 15 grams of plastic explosive, a detonator and a battery hidden near the cooling fan by Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR).
Between February 4 and 7, at least Eight Russian drone pilots seriously injured and some may have been blinded after hidden IEDs were activated.
A HUR source described the operation as ‘deserved punishment for the war crimes that the Russian occupiers commit against Ukraine every day’ and added that the production of equipment ‘loaded with surprises’ has expanded beyond the Carpathians and has reached Russian territory.