Extraordinary footage has revealed the breathless intensity of trench warfare in eastern Ukraine, with Ukrainian soldiers firing on Russian troops just meters from them.
The footage shows Ukrainian soldiers stalking through a Russian trench in the Donetsk region and shooting dead one of Vladimir Putin’s men.
Video captured with helmet cameras also shows Ukrainian soldiers firing at Russian soldiers from their small bunkers amid tree roots blackened and deformed by artillery fire.
In the clip, Ukrainian soldiers fire their automatic weapons from their positions at the Russian soldiers, while a tank provides support for the troops.
Ukrainian troops were then seen in drone footage running through a no man’s land reminiscent of a desolate World War I battlefield and storming a trench before capturing the Russian position.
A Ukrainian soldier is seen making his way through the narrow trench and throwing a grenade towards where he thought the enemy soldiers were hiding in the suspenseful footage. As soon as he sees a Russian soldier, he quickly opens fire and shoots him dead.
Video captured on helmet cameras also shows Ukrainian soldiers firing at Russian soldiers from their small bunkers amid deformed tree roots blackened by artillery fire.
Extraordinary footage has revealed the breathless intensity of trench warfare in eastern Ukraine, with Ukrainian soldiers firing on Russian troops just meters from them.
Ukrainian troops were then seen in drone footage racing through a no man’s land reminiscent of a desolate World War I battlefield and storming a Russian trench before capturing it.
A Ukrainian soldier is seen making his way through the narrow trench and throwing a grenade towards where he thought the enemy soldiers were hiding in the suspenseful footage.
As soon as he sees a Russian soldier, he quickly opens fire, shooting him dead.
The six-minute footage showed Ukrainian soldiers engaged in an intense battle and shooting Russian soldiers before hostilities ceased as they reloaded their weapons and smoked cigarettes to calm their nerves.
Footage then shows a Ukrainian soldier being handed ammunition clips before the sound of gunfire is heard in the distance.
The incredible raw images were obtained from the K2 Combat Group of the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Monday.
The battalion shared the video, saying: ‘Six and a half ordinary minutes of ordinary fighters from the ordinary mechanized battalion K2 Combat Group of the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade.
‘No editing, no filters, no decorations. With blood, sweat and smoke. This is how we approach victory.’
They also said the footage was shot in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
It comes as President Volodymyr Zelensky and his military high command agreed today to continue defending Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
Following a meeting involving the president, senior government officials and military commanders, Zelensky’s office said in a statement: “After considering the defensive operation in the direction of Bakhmut, all members… expressed a position common to continue holding and defending the city of Bakhmut”. .’
Earlier, Ukrainian soldiers said that Russian troops are still arriving in waves along the front line in eastern Ukraine, a sign that Russia’s winter offensive will not stop even though Moscow has failed to get any great win so far.
In the clip, Ukrainian soldiers fire their automatic weapons from their positions at the Russian soldiers, while a tank provides support for the troops.
Ukrainian service members fire an M119 howitzer at a front line near the town of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on March 10.
Russia and Ukraine are locked in Europe’s bloodiest infantry battle since World War Two, after Moscow launched a winter offensive involving hundreds of thousands of newly recruited reservists and mercenaries. The front lines have hardly moved in over four months despite huge losses on both sides.
With assaults on other parts of the front having failed, Russia appears intent on securing the ruins of the small town of Bakhmut in what would be its first victory since mid-2022.
In a video speech overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s “future is being decided” in battles in the east, including Bakhmut, where Ukrainian commanders say they are killing enough Russian attackers to justify staying and fight for a ruined city that has almost been surrounded. .
“It’s very hard in the east, very painful,” Zelenskiy said. ‘We have to destroy the enemy’s military power. And we will destroy it.
Farther north, on the front line near Kreminna, Oleksandr, 50, a unit commander in Ukraine’s 110th battalion, said Russian assaults were still relentless despite having gained little ground there. The Russians are trying to return to Lyman, a major transit hub that Ukraine recaptured last year.
‘They are pressing a lot. They are dropping mortar shells on us,’ Oleksandr told Reuters, describing Russian units advancing in three-man fire teams, with another wave behind them sent to replace them when they are killed.
“At night they always attack on foot and we sit and look through our thermal goggles and shoot at them.”
The Kremlin, for its part, said it was committed to the use of force to achieve its war goals, and Kiev must come to terms with the “new realities,” its shorthand for Russia’s claim to have annexed nearly a fifth of Ukraine. , which invaded a year ago.
‘We have to achieve our goals. At the moment, this is only possible by military means due to the current position of the Kiev regime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agencies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that what was at stake in Ukraine was the very existence of Russia.
After retaking swaths of territory in the second half of 2022, Kiev has remained mostly on the defensive for the past four months, while Moscow has launched its big winter offensive using its newly mobilized reservists and jailed convicts as mercenaries.
Ukrainian authorities say they are preparing their own counter-offensive for later this year, once the muddy ground dries up and hundreds of Western tanks and armored vehicles arrive.
Soldiers of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army hold their positions on the front line near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, on March 11.
A Ukrainian Volunteer Army soldier prepares ammunition to fire on Russian frontline positions near Bakhmut on March 11.
But the outcome of those campaigns could depend on which side emerges stronger after Russia’s winter assault, with both sides suffering heavy casualties in what they describe as a meat-grinder fighting.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Moscow was running low on ammunition, “to the point that extremely punitive shell rationing is in effect on many parts of the front.”
“This has almost certainly been a key reason why no Russian formation has recently been able to generate operationally significant offensive action,” he said in a daily intelligence update.
But Ukraine also faces shell shortages and ultimately has a smaller population to engage in a battle of attrition. Some military experts say Bakhmut is unfavorable terrain for kyiv to fight Russian forces that have advanced far enough around the city to attack Ukrainian supply lines in the rear.
“We could lose everything here that we wanted to use for those counteroffensives,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said of the battle for Bakhmut.
