This is the dramatic moment a squad of Russian soldiers hiding behind a downed Ukrainian tank are blown up by a Ukranian drone.
FPV drone footage captured the heart-stopping encounter, which took place somewhere along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) frontline.
As the Ukrainian drone whizzes around the destroyed tank, it exposes the squad of soldiers crouching next to it.
The soldiers appear startled as the drone hurtles towards them – but it’s too late to react.
The footage then cuts to a different shot as the armed drone obliterates the Russian soldiers, igniting a fireball that also engulfs the tank and surrounding perimeter.
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It comes after Russia launched its largest single assault on Ukraine of the war on Friday, as fighting along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line has subsided into grinding attrition amid winter. At least 41 civilians have been killed since the weekend.
Ukraine’s two largest cities came under attack early Tuesday from Russian missiles that killed five people and injured as many as 130, officials said, as the war approached its two-year mark and the Kremlin stepped up its winter bombardment of urban areas.
Air defences shot down all 10 of the Russian Kinzhal missiles, which can fly at 10 times the speed of sound, out of about 100 of various types that were launched, said Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief.
But other missiles got through in Kyiv and in Kharkiv, the provincial capital of the northeastern region.
In Kyiv and its surrounding region, four people were killed and about 70 were wounded, while in the Kharkiv region, one person was killed and about 60 were hurt, the Interior Ministry said.
The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile that is rarely used by Russian forces due to its cost and limited stocks.
The barrage fired Tuesday was the highest number used in one attack since the start of the war, Ukraine air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said.
Russia fired almost 100 missiles of various types in the attacks, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X, formerly Twitter.
He claimed at least 70 were shot down, almost all of them in the Kyiv area, noting that Western-supplied air defense systems such as Patriots and NASAMS had saved hundreds of lives.
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