Ukraine Reportedly Turned a Hydrogen Car Into an Improvised Hydrogen Bomb

A novel use of a hydrogen fuel cell car.

Fueled Cell

Using parts from a salvaged Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, Ukrainian fighters reportedly managed to build a tiny hydrogen bomb.

As the English-language Ukrainian outlet Euromaidan Press reports, the hydrogen fuel cell at the heart of one of Toyota’s unpopular Mirai models provided the power for the small explosive that successfully forced Russian forces to retreat in the border town of Vovchansk.

As the outlet notes, the Mirai had already been wrecked prior to being taken apart to build a bomb. It ended up delivering a key advantage to the defensive forces as they fought against Russians who had reportedly disrupted the Ukrainian military’s electronics.

The bomb in question ended up weighing roughly 440 pounds and was deployed on the ground both because electronics had been disrupted and because, well, it was too heavy to drop via aerial drone.

The Ukrainian military managed to maneuver the salvaged bomb using a remote-controlled ground drone right up to its Russian target at a shelled factory before going “boom.” The resulting damage included “powerful blast waves, fireballs, and debris,” Euromaidan reports.

To be clear, we’re not talking about a literal thermonuclear “hydrogen bomb” — Ukrainian forces used plastic explosives to detonate the hydrogen gas within the car’s fuel cell.

If confirmed, it’s certainly a bombshell use of salvaged car parts, but apparently, that sort of thing is par for the course in Russia’s ongoing invasion of its former Eastern Bloc neighbor.

Electric Feel

As Euromaidan Press notes, fighters in the Vovchansk region have long had to improvise weaponry given their close proximity to the Russian border, which lies less than two-and-a-half miles away.

Salvaging parts from wrecked electric vehicles to turn into both bombs and drones has apparently become commonplace in the area as the town faces delays in the delivery of Western-built bombs. Aside from the novel use of the Toyota Mirai’s fuel cell, the report also notes that Vovchansk fighters have also used Tesla components to build drones — including the ground drone used to deliver the DIY hydrogen bomb.

As with everything related to this conflict, these reports about the homemade hydrogen bomb suggest that the future of modern war — be it sophisticated invasion tactics like those used by the Russians or the high-tech pseudo-guerilla warfare deployed by the Ukrainians — is being written in the former Soviet Union.

More on Ukraine: Ukraine Apparently Blew Up a 12-Ton Russian Helicopter Using a Two-Pound Drone

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