A battery of four 152 mm SpGH DANA firing. Photo Credit: U.S. Army.
The Russian military continues to hunt down the artillery of Kiev forces, especially the more advanced howitzers which were recently supplied to Ukraine.
On July 6, Russian sources shared footage showing the destruction of a DANA M2 152 mm self-propelled howitzer of Kiev forces near the city of Seversk in the Donbass region. The footage was taken by a drone, which was likely used to coordinate the strike on the howitzer.
The howitzer was apparently targeted with a precision-guided munition, most likely a Russian laser-guided 2K25 Krasnopol artillery round fired from a 152 mm howitzer.
The DANA M2 was designed by Konštrukta Trenčín and built by ZTS Dubnica nad Váhom in the former Czechoslovakia. The howitzer has a maximum range of 20 kilometers and a rate of fire of up to four round per minute with its unique semi-automatic reloader.
Ukraine ordered 26 DANA M2 howitzers from the Czech Republic in 2020. After the start of the Russian special operation in the country, Czech promised to supply Kiev forces with an unknown number of DANA M2 and DANA vz. 77 howitzers.
In the last few months, Ukraine received more than two hundred howitzers from its allies in the West. Despite this, its forces are still outgunned by the Russian military.
Many of the newly-supplied howitzers have been already destroyed, damaged or even captured by the Russian military and its allies. Despite this, Western states will likely continue to supply howitzers and other heavy weapons to Kiev forces just to prolong the war in Ukraine.
