Incredible infrared video shows Russian soldiers fleeing as drone with thermal sights drops bombs on their comrades in ‘night hunt’ – as Ukraine launches Donbas counter-attack
- Ukrainian drone with thermal sights filmed ‘night hunt’ for Russian soldiers
- Four troops seen fleeing, before bombs are dropped on comrades left behind
- Comes amid fighting in Donbas, with Ukraine clinging on in Severodonetsk
- Kyiv’s men have launched a counter-attack and re-took forest west of Izyum
This is the moment Russian solders fled for their lives as they were attacked by a drone armed with thermal sights and bombs on a ‘night hunt’.
Footage captured by the drone, in service with Ukraine’s 47th Motorised Infantry Battalion, shows four soldiers escaping into the woods – apparently after hearing the drone approaching.
The drone then drops two bombs on their comrades who stayed behind, killing at least three of them, according to Ukraine’s military.
It is not clear exactly where or when the footage was taken, but it comes amid bitter fighting in the Donbas region with Ukraine clinging on in one key city while launching counter-attacks further to the north.
Thermal footage shows a Ukrainian drone going on a ‘night hunt’ for Russian soldiers, sending four of them fleeing for their lives into the woods (pictured)
The drone then drops bombs on the soldiers who stayed behind, killing three of them – according to a report from Ukraine’s military
Kyiv said Monday that its forces had been pushed back from the centre of Severodonetsk, where the heaviest fighting is currently taking place.
President Zelensky said his men are fighting for ‘literally every metre’ as control of the city regularly swaps between Ukraine and Russia, causing huge damage.
Regional governor Serhiy Haidai said Monday that Russian forces were ‘gathering more and more equipment’ to ‘encircle’ Severodonetsk, and that they had ‘pushed our troops from the centre and continue to destroy our city’.
The Azot chemical plant, where hundreds of civilians have reportedly taken refuge was still being shelled, he said.
In Lysychansk – Severodonetsk’s sister city located just across the Donets River – three civilians were killed by shelling, including a six-year-old boy, Haidai said.
But, further to the north, there was evidence of Ukraine launching a counter-attack against Russian troops near Izyum – previously the main thrust of the Donbas offensive before a push southwards towards Slovyansk stalled.
NASA satellites trained to track fires showed burning in a wooded area to the west of Izyum on late Saturday and into Sunday – an indication of shelling in the area.
Fighting appeared to be concentrated around the towns of Spivakivka and Zavody, amid disputed reported that Ukraine had recaptured them.
Both sides are pouring men into the Donbas offensive, viewing victory in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as pivotal to the future of the war.
Winning here would place the victorious side in a stronger position to either push ahead with further attacks, or force a peace deal from a stronger position.
Defeat for Ukraine may mean accepting a loss of territory and another frozen conflict, leaving it vulnerable to future Russian attacks.
Meanwhile defeat for Russia would spell the overall failure of its invasion, putting Putin’s future as leader in doubt.
It came as Amnesty International on Monday accused Russia of war crimes, saying that attacks on the northeastern city of Kharkiv – many using banned cluster bombs – had killed hundreds of civilians.
‘The repeated bombardments of residential neighbourhoods in Kharkiv are indiscriminate attacks which killed and injured hundreds of civilians, and as such constitute war crimes,’ the rights group said in a report.
Away from the battlefield, World Trade Organization members gathered in Geneva Sunday, and at the top of the agenda was the issue of tackling global food security threatened by Russia’s invasion of wheat-producing Ukraine.
Tensions ran high during a closed-door session, where several delegates took the floor to condemn Russia’s war, including Kyiv’s envoy who was met with a standing ovation, WTO spokesman Dan Pruzin told journalists.
Just before Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov spoke, around three dozen delegates ‘walked out’, the spokesman said.
That came a day after the head of the European Commission promised Ukraine would receive a signal within a week on its bid to join the European Union.
EU leaders are expected to approve the bid at an upcoming summit, though with strict conditions attached.
In Brussels, demonstrators brandishing Ukrainian flags circled European Commission headquarters Sunday in a show of support.
The war has prompted Finland and Sweden to give up decades of military non-alignment and seek to join the NATO alliance.
But Turkey is blocking their bids and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday the issue may not be resolved by an alliance summit later this month.
Ukrainian long-range rocket artillery open fire on Russian positions in Lysychansk, a short distance from where the heaviest fighting is taking place in Severodonetsk
A Ukrainian tank driver sits inside his vehicle waiting to deploy to the battlefield in Donetsk, in the east of Ukraine
A Ukrainian tank sits under the cover of trees in the eastern Donbas region, as it waits to join the fighting in nearby towns and villages
A Ukrainian artillery gun gets into position to fire on Russian troops near the town of Bakmut, a key supply hub for Severodonetsk where the heaviest fighting is taking place
The United States and Europe have sent weapons and cash to help Ukraine blunt Russia’s advance, alongside punishing Moscow with unprecedented economic sanctions.
Russian forces said Sunday they had struck a site in the town of Chortkiv in western Ukraine storing US- and EU-supplied weapons.
Russia’s defence ministry said the strike destroyed a ‘large depot of anti-tank missile systems, portable air defence systems and shells provided to the Kyiv regime by the US and European countries’.
The strike – a rare attack by Russia in the relatively calm west of Ukraine – left 22 people injured, regional governor Volodymyr Trush said.
Concerns eased Sunday over Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia. Captured months ago by Russian forces but still operated by Ukrainians, the station had ceased transmitting vital safeguards data two weeks ago.
But plant officials working with the International Atomic Energy Agency have succeeded in restoring transmission, the IAEA said.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the UN agency, said it still wanted to send inspectors to the plant ‘as soon as possible’.
Alongside the physical fighting, the war is being played out through the courts.
Pro-Moscow separatist authorities in the Donetsk region this week sentenced to death two Britons and a Moroccan for fighting with the Ukrainian army.
The sentences sparked outrage in Western countries, but separatist Donetsk leader Denis Pushilin said Sunday he would not alter them.
‘They came to Ukraine to kill civilians for money,’ he told reporters, calling the punishment ‘perfectly fair’.
The families of Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner say they have been living in Ukraine since 2018.
Ukrainian courts have handed three Russian soldiers long prison sentences at war crimes trials.
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