The requirements stated that the vehicle should have all wheel drive, at least two turnable axles, independent suspension as well as mobility and fording capabilities allowing it to operate alongside tanks.

Despite the fact that the army wanted a fully roofed vehicle with NBC protection system, the GAZ design did not have those features.

The main reason was that the GAZ design was the simplest and cheapest one and introduced the fewest technological advancements, which made it easier to put into mass production.

The hull armour is made from welded steel and provides protection against small arms fire and shrapnel.

The rest of the armour can withstand 7.62 mm bullets from a range of 100 m.[1] The BTR-60P did not have a roof over the troop compartment, which made a weakness that could easily be exploited—even the simplest explosives could take out a BTR-60P.

According to the data provided by the USSR during the signing of the CFE Treaty in 1990, there were 4,191 BTR-60s in service with the units stationed in the European part of the Soviet Union.

[18] The high losses due to RPG hits weren't unexpected, as the BTR-60's armour was designed to protect the vehicle from small arms fire and shrapnel, but not specialized anti-tank weapons.

The same design flaws were present during this conflict and the vehicle became even more vulnerable due to the kind of fighting that took place in Afghanistan.

The GAZ-40P gasoline engines experienced frequent power losses and overheating due to the tropical highland climate for which they were not well suited.

[21] As of 2007, several hundred BTR-60s remain in service with USSR successor states; these are in a process of being replaced by more modern vehicles.

[23] Some of these BTR-60PUMs were deployed in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, with at least one being captured by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Eventually, the unarmed and peaceful demonstrators surrounded the APC, mounted it, and forced its crew to leave the square.

[15] Operators of the BTR-60 have included Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bhutan, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Cuba, Djibouti, East Germany, Ethiopia, Finland, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Libya, Mali, Mongolia, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, North Korea, Romania, Soviet Union, Syria, Uganda, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Yemen, and Zambia, as well as many of the successor states of the Soviet Union.

[10] The Soviet Union invested heavily in bolstering the mechanized and armoured capabilities of the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) during the Angolan Civil War.

[25] For most of the 1970s, FAPLA remained critically short of modern armoured vehicles, and as late as 1981 many of its motorized infantry formations were equipped only with trucks or obsolete BTR-152s.

[31] FAPLA's motorized brigades, which bore the brunt of South African counter-insurgency as well as conventional army operations, came to include three companies of BTR-60s each.

[32] Additionally, both the Cuban and Soviet military missions in Angola possessed a number of BTR-60s, which were used for general liaison purposes.

[31] A number of FAPLA BTR-60PBs were deployed during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, with 65 being lost during several engagements with South African expeditionary forces.

[33] FAPLA was not successful in coordinating its combined arms operations over the course of the campaign, and on several occasions the Angolan motorized infantry became separated from their accompanying armour or advanced with no accompanying armour at all, allowing the much more lightly armed South African troops to isolate and destroy them.

[34] The first armour-to-armour kill of the battle occurred on 9 September 1987, when a lone BTR-60 carrying out reconnaissance on the Lomba River was knocked out by a South African Ratel infantry fighting vehicle.

[35] Over the course of the civil war, FAPLA BTR-60PBs were commonly used for convoy escort purposes, guarding logistical vehicles bringing fresh supplies and ammunition to the front lines.

[36] During the late 1980s, the threat of ambush by South African troops with armoured vehicles and heavy weapons of their own prompted the BTR-60 to be complemented in this role by the much more heavily armed BMP-1.

In 1991, seven conscripts of the Karelia Brigade drowned when their BTR-60 sank at Taipalsaari during an amphibious exercise because the vehicle was loaded incorrectly (top-heavy) and the roof hatches opened.

The usual nicknames for BTR-60 amongst the Finnish conscripts were Petteri (a male name), after the initials BTR, and Taipalsaaren sukellusvene (Taipalsaari Submarine) after the 1991 incident.

In response, on 17 December, the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to transfer 25 BTR-60PBs along with 10,250,000 "Czeromucha" incapacitating chemical devices and 2,000 tonnes of gas over to its Polish counterpart.

This was because Policja, unlike MO, didn't have a need for weaponry with such a high muzzle velocity – such weapons were dangerous to use in urban areas.

Policja used unarmed BTR-60PBs for security during European Economy Summit 2004 in Warsaw, as well as for clearing blockades set up by the Samoobrona political party.

PRC reversed engineered the BTR-60PB after capturing four examples during the Sino-Soviet border conflict on Zhenbao Island in March 1969.

However, the vehicle did not enter service in large numbers because the PRC's primitive road system and rugged terrain meant that the wheeled APC was not well suited for the Chinese conditions as it lacked the cross country capability of the tracked APCs in the Chinese inventory.

Finland bought later two BTR-80s for testing out a replacement but ended up buying the domestic XA-180 series of vehicles, known later as Patria Pasi.