After meeting with members of the US Congress, Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, told reporters that Russia used a thermobaric weapon, which is known as a vacuum bomb, in the conflict.
“They used the vacuum bomb today…The devastation that Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine is large,” Markarova said.
But what is a vacuum bomb?
It is a weapon, which sucks in oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion. It produces a blast wave of a longer duration than that of a conventional explosive and can vaporise human bodies.
The fuel-air explosives (FAE) were first developed and used in Vietnam by the US, as per a Human Rights Watch report from 2000. The Soviet scientists also developed FAE weapons soon and used them against China in 1969.
Since then, a lot of research and development have been done on it. Russians seems to be holding a wide range of third-generation FAE warheads.
There is still no official confirmation about the use of these weapons in the conflict in Ukraine. Numerous international organisations have already condemned these weapons.