New footage shows Ukrainian troops employing British M777 howitzers to destroy a Russian tank and two infantry fighting vehicles.
Aerial film appears to show the 81st Airmobile Brigade targeting the trucks with long-range weapons.
‘Gunners of the 81st Brigade of the DShV [Ukrainian Air Assault Forces] destroyed one tank and two infantry combat vehicles of the Russian invaders,’ according to the Command of the Assault Troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
‘The movie depicts the successful operation of artillery personnel from the 81st Airmobile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who destroyed racists’ equipment and manpower using British M777 155-mm field howitzers.
‘In particular, the Russian occupants’ one tank and two infantry fighting vehicles – as well as their soldiers – were scrapped. The Russian occupiers must perish! Always First with DShV! Ukraine, we salute you!’
It’s the latest setback for Russian forces, who have lost a large number of personnel and military gear during their four-month-long incursion.
According to Ukraine, Russia has lost 33,800 personnel, 1,477 tanks, 3,588 armored combat vehicles, 749 artillery units, 235 multiple launch rocket systems, 98 air defense systems, 216 warplanes, 181 helicopters, 601 drones, 130 cruise missiles, 14 warships, 2,527 motor vehicles and fuel tankers, and 55 special equipment units.
On the battlefield, Russian forces are attempting to retake total control of the eastern Donbas region, which was already under the authority of Russian-backed rebels before to the February 24 assault.
It comes as Ukraine waits nervously for the EU to make a historic judgment on its application to join the bloc, with Volodymyr Zelesnky predicting an uptick in Russian ‘hostile activities’ this week.
The industrial city of Sievierodonetsk is a key target of Moscow’s eastern offensive.
On Sunday, Russia announced that it had taken control of Metyolkine, a village on the outskirts of the city, and that numerous Ukrainian fighters had surrendered there, according to Russian state news agency TASS.
Russia achieved ‘limited success’ in the area, according to Ukraine’s military.
A Russian offensive on Toshkivka, 20 miles south of Sievierodonetsk, ‘had a degree of success,’ according to Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai.
Gaidai said Russia held ‘the main part’ of Sievierodonetsk, a city of 100,000 people before the war, but not the full town, after severe battle. The combat accounts could not be independently verified by Reuters.
The severe bombardment around Sievierodonetsk has continued ‘with little change to the front line,’ according to the British Ministry of Defence.
Residential structures and private dwellings in Sievierodonetsk’s twin city of Lysychansk had been devastated by Russian bombardment, according to Gaidai. ‘People are dying in bomb shelters and on the streets,’ he added.
He later confirmed that 19 persons were evacuated on Sunday. ‘We’re doing our utmost to bring in humanitarian aid and evacuate people,’ Gaidai added.
‘Russian troops will certainly be able to conquer Sievierodonetsk in the coming weeks, but at the cost of concentrating most of their available forces in one limited area,’ analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a note.
According to Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the Ukraine battle might extend for years and encouraged Western governments to keep delivering state-of-the-art equipment to Ukrainian troops.
‘We need to plan for the possibility that it will take years.’ ‘We must not relent in our support for Ukraine,’ Stoltenberg said.
Russia has announced the commencement of a’special military operation’ to disarm its neighbor and defend Russian speakers from dangerous nationalists in the country.
That is dismissed by Kyiv and its allies as a bogus justification for an aggressive conflict.
Morale among Ukrainian and Russian combat units in the Donbas was likely ‘varying,’ according to a British military assessment.
‘While Ukrainian forces are likely to have experienced desertions in recent weeks, Russian morale is likely to be particularly low.
The British Ministry of Defence remarked on Twitter that “cases of whole Russian units defying commands and armed stand-offs between officials and their troops continue to occur.”