M-240 mortars resurface in Ukraine’s arsenal, challenging past assumptions

Defense Express reported the information.

The press service of Ukraine's Third Assault Brigade released a video showing its fighters using a Soviet M-240 240-mm mortar, highlighting that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have several of these systems, one of which was received by the brigade's fire support company.

The release of this video is significant, as prior to this, mentions of the M-240 in Ukrainian forces only appeared twice on social media in 2022 and 2023, without any details on which units were using these Soviet 240mm mortars.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces now have several M-240 mortars, contrary to earlier belief that only one existed, supposedly from Kyiv's World War II Museum. It turns out the original exhibit remained, and others were sourced from military reserves and institutions.

Another theory suggests Romania may have possibly received 12 M-240 mortars from the USSR in 1971, which could explain why Ukraine now has these weapons to target Russian forces.

The phrase "may have possibly received" is used because The Military Balance 1990 (and later editions) did not list M-240 mortars in Romania, although it also did not mention MiG-29s, which were delivered in the late 1980s.

The M-240 mortar has a firing rate of one shot per minute and is loaded from the breech. It takes 20–25 minutes to set up from the travel position and can be towed at speeds up to 40 km/h by an 11-person crew. It fires 130.7 kg high-explosive shells (53-F-864, 53-F-865) and a 228 kg active-reactive shell (3F2). Manufactured between 1951 and 1958, a total of 329 units were produced.