As a dramatic video of a Ukrainian soldier destroying a Russian vehicle surfaced, Kyiv claimed that Ukrainian forces are retaking the Kherson region step-by-step as it launches a massive counteroffensive against Vladimir Putin’s invading armies.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky stated in a speech on Sunday that his country’s troops were moving into the southern territory that had been annexed in order to reclaim territory lost during the conflict.
The British Ministry of Defence reported on Saturday that fierce fighting had been going on in Kherson Oblast.
The MoD stated that its supply line east of the river was “increasingly at risk” while Russia was using artillery fire to halt the Ukrainian advance.
The strike, which was captured on camera on Saturday, appears to indicate that the fighting is intensifying.
It is the most recent example of Ukrainian forces using a Javelin missile to successfully destroy Russian military equipment.
To aid in Ukraine’s defence, the US and the UK have shipped thousands of Javelin missile launchers there.
Since the Russian president ordered his forces into Ukraine on February 24, the weapons have proven to be incredibly effective in the hands of Kyiv’s soldiers and have been responsible for the destruction of hundreds of Russian military vehicles.
The soldier is first seen lining up his target by looking through the thermal imaging screen of the missile launcher while seated cross-legged on the ground.
The footage, which was shot on Saturday, then cuts to a view of the battlefield from a drone.
A BTR (Bronetransporter), a Russian armoured vehicle, is seen immobile on a dirt road winding through some vegetation.
The soldier is briefly seen in the video firing the missile. As the missile launches from the launcher and travels through the air toward the BTR, the camera trembles.
The soldier lets the launcher slump to the ground as he watches to see if he has hit his target as the missile streams away from him.
A tiny speck can be seen flying toward the Russian vehicle as the camera pans back to the drone’s overhead view.
A direct hit is being indicated when suddenly fire and smoke are seen coming from the front of the BTR.
A third camera view after the strike depicts the car as it crosses ravaged fields.
By this time, the BTR is on fire and rising black smoke is visible in the distance.
Roman Kostenko, the Ukrainian People’s Deputy and Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, shared the video to Facebook on Sunday.
Kostenko claimed to have seen the attack on the Russian BTR firsthand and to have been nearby Kherson at the time.
He suggested that the guy who fired the Javelin anti-tank missile was a member of Ukraine’s Spetsnaz (special forces) troops by writing that the soldier was an SSO fighter.
I personally saw yesterday how the Rashists’ “demilitarisation” in the Kherson direction went as planned,” he stated.
“An SSO fighter with a Javelin added makes an adversary armoured personnel carrier less effective.” Great work!
If anyone was killed in the strike, it is unclear.
When deploying a sizable number of its vehicles into and throughout Ukraine during the early stages of the conflict, Russia used outdated military convoys from the Soviet period.
In the eyes of outside observers, the situation for the greatly outnumbered Ukrainian forces appeared hopeless, and Russia seemed shamelessly confident that it would take Kyiv in a matter of days.
The more manoeuvrable military units of Ukraine, however, found the Russian vehicles to be simple targets for their light-weight weapons like Javelin missile launchers, which allowed soldiers to destroy vehicles from a distance while remaining mobile on the battlefield.
In the meantime, a research group in Washington claimed that Ukrainian forces are either getting ready to launch or have already launched a counteroffensive in the Kherson region.
Serhiy Khlan, the Kherson Oblast Administration Adviser, was quoted by the Institute for the Study of War as saying that Ukrainian forces had taken unnamed settlements in the area, but he had urged Ukrainian civilians to keep quiet about the counteroffensive’s progress until Ukrainian authorities made official statements.
According to the ISW, open-source reports on any advancements made by Ukrainian forces “will probably be limited and lag behind events.”
The ISW report was released after Ukraine attacked a bridge in the occupied Kherson region of the Black Sea on Saturday, striking a Russian supply route.
At the same time, reports suggested that Kyiv was getting ready to launch a significant counteroffensive, according to a regional Ukrainian official.
Days after a crucial bridge over the adjacent Dnieper was struck, a strike targeted the Daryivskyi bridge across the Ingulets river, used for supplies by Russian soldiers, according to an adviser to the region’s governor who is on Ukrainian-controlled territory.
Every bridge is a logistical weak spot, and our military forces are deftly taking down the adversary system.
Although Kherson has not yet been freed, this is a significant first step in that direction, the official Serhiy Khlan stated on Facebook.
The bridge had been hit by seven missiles from high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) provided by the West, but the deputy head of the regional authority that Russia had established declared the bridge was still operational.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the claims made by either side.
In an effort to shift the tide of the war and set up a counteroffensive in the Kherson region, Ukraine has been employing long-range weapons supplied by the west to strike Russian supply lines and ammo dumps.
Since its invasion on February 24, Russia has seized large portions of southern and eastern Ukraine.
Almost a day after Russia and Ukraine inked a deal to resume grain imports from the port, Kostenko posted the video as Russian officials asserted that an air strike on Odesa had only struck military objectives.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike had “destroyed the basic possibility” of discussion, and Moscow has received widespread condemnation for it.
Igor Konashenkov, the spokesperson for the Russian defence ministry, claimed at a daily briefing on Sunday that the air strike had exclusively targeted Ukrainian military facilities—a defence Moscow has often made in the face of accusations of war crimes.
A day after Turkey claimed the Kremlin had denied any role in the strikes, Russia likewise made its acknowledgement.
“A docked Ukrainian warship and a warehouse with Harpoon anti-ship missiles supplied by the US to the Kyiv dictatorship were destroyed in the harbour in the city of Odesa, on the grounds of a shipyard,” Konashenkov claimed.
The Ukrainian military claimed that on Saturday, Moscow launched four cruise missiles against the port of Odesa, two of which were intercepted by air defences.
No grain storage facilities were targeted in Odesa, according to command spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk, although Turkey’s defence minister said Ukrainian officials told him one missile hit a grain silo and another landed nearby. However, neither had an impact on dock loading at Odesa.
The intention to resume delivering Ukrainian grain by sea in secure corridors out of the three Ukrainian Black Sea ports of Odesa, Chernomorsk, and Yuzhny is unknown how the airstrikes will influence it.
The UN and Turkey supported the agreement, which Ukraine and Russia signed on Friday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres praised the idea as “a light of hope” for a world where food prices are growing quickly.
Andriy Yermak, the director of Mr. Zelensky’s office, claimed on Twitter on Saturday that the Odesa attack, which took place so soon after the Black Sea agreement was approved, exemplifies “the Russian diplomatic paradox.”
The UN leader ‘unequivocally condemns’ the strikes, according to Mr. Guterres’ office.
“All parties made explicit guarantees on the international stage to secure the safe transit of Ukrainian grain and allied products to international markets,” read a statement.
To address the worldwide food crisis and alleviate the suffering of millions of people, these items are urgently needed.
“It took less than 24 hours for Russia to conduct a missile attack on the port of Odesa, breaking its promises and undermining its commitments before the UN and Turkey under the Istanbul accord,” said Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
“Russia will carry entire responsibility for a worldwide food crisis in event of non-fulfillment.”
He called the missile attack on the 150th day of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine “spit in the face of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who made significant efforts to reach agreement,” according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Sunday, Ukrainian officials claimed that people in the country’s south and east continued to be killed and injured by Russian shelling.
Two people had been murdered and two more had been injured in the preceding 24 hours, according to the governor of the eastern Donetsk area, one of the two regions that make up the industrial heartland of Ukraine known as the Donbas.
In its daily intelligence update, the UK Ministry of Defence stated on Sunday morning that Russia was making “limited progress” in its ongoing Donbas operation, which was still small-scale and concentrated on the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk.