Disturbing footage revealed in a new BBC documentary shows the moment a Ukrainian soldier stalks and kills two Russians in a forest buried in snow.
Jamie Roberts’ extraordinary BBC Two documentary ‘Ukraine, Enemy in the Woods’ paints a chilling picture of the real frontline with moving clips showing fighting in the frozen expanses of the Kupyansk Forest.
In shocking body camera footage captured by a brave Ukrainian soldier, he and a group of fellow fighters can be seen ducking behind tree trunks as they trek across the frozen landscape.
‘Someone is screaming, but I can’t see anything. I’ll keep looking. Do you copy?’ he says.
Viewers follow his gaze as he surveys the barren forest, before raising his gun into the frame in an apparent act of preparation for an attack.
Disturbing footage captured by a Ukrainian soldier shows the tense moment he shot a Russian lurking in a forest in Kupyansk, Ukraine.
The soldier could be heard talking to his team as they scoured the woods looking for enemy presence.
The soldier begins shooting at a head that appears for just a fraction of a second, before walking towards the body to confirm that the Russian had been killed.
As in a scene from a war video game, the soldier begins to walk along a path, already full of footprints from other invisible soldiers.
He crouches behind a pile of snow-covered logs and branches, seemingly trying to blend into his surroundings as he warns his teammates, “The enemy had infiltrated the area.”
Tensions rise as the soldiers continue their hunt for the enemy, with the filming soldier occasionally looking over the fallen branch so that onlookers can catch a glimpse of his view.
But with such thick layers of snow on the road you can’t see anything.
The soldier bravely clings to the log to remove a thick pile of snow that was blocking his vision, a move that could have been deadly if there had been Russian enemies guarding the area.
Turning your head, you can see the bodies of Russian soldiers bleeding out in the fresh white snow.
“We could see that there had been a big shootout,” the soldier says.
“There were dead Russians everywhere.”
As he and the group hide near a deep ditch, weapons drawn, the soldier can be heard shouting “Who’s there?” in a heart attack moment.
As the tense minutes pass, viewers are left on the edge of their seats in anticipation of an enemy jumping out from behind a tree or from deep snow.
Then suddenly the soldier gives an urgent warning.
‘Vovan. There’s a damn near your position, 50 or 70 meters away.’
His camera focuses back on his gun, wrapped in green tape in a flashlight, as he prepares it for use.
The soldier retreated to take cover behind a tree after shooting down the first Russian after warning that “he may explode.”
“He’s just sitting there, doing nothing,” he says.
The footage again shows a corpse lurking behind the soldier, giving a chilling indication of what is to come.
The soldier gets up and walks slowly through the snow, but there appears to be no enemy presence in sight.
Then, out of nowhere, the soldier raises his gun and begins shooting into the distance, where for a split second a head can be seen peeking over a log.
After repeatedly firing into the area, the soldier stops and assesses the situation before firing again.
A Russian can be seen struggling to get up behind a fallen tree, shaking as he tries to hold on to the trunk and return fire.
But it’s too slow.
The Ukrainian soldier can be seen approaching where the Russian was hiding, his weapon still primed and ready for a counterattack.
He approaches the body when it clearly enters the frame, and is shown lying in the snow in a pool of blood.
In an effort to ensure his and his team’s safety, the soldier fires a few more bullets into the body before running away, saying “careful, it may explode.”
The Ukrainian soldier is alerted that another Russian is moving behind him, but quickly eliminates him as well before the footage goes dark.
A creepy message appears on the screen.
‘Guru, I am Vovan. I finished them. Do you copy?’
The 59-minute BBC documentary aired today and is available on BBC iPlayer.
Explore the real-time story of a single Ukrainian infantry company that finds itself in a life-or-death battle to defend the Eastern Front against a series of intense Russian attacks.
Filmed by Ukrainian soldiers, viewers are introduced to one of the most violent battle fronts in Ukraine as the soldiers carry out a mission to defend a railway line.
Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that around 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed during Russia’s large-scale invasion.
It comes after Russian forces suffered one of the most devastating blows of the war last month when a Ukrainian HIMARS missile attack killed 65 soldiers who had been ordered into formation by a bumbling commander.