Ukraine’s military shared dramatic footage of its fighters targeting a Russian tank convoy close to the Donetsk city of Bakhmut as it continues with its counteroffensive against Russian troops who are positioned across the south and east of the country.
“Another [R]uscist attempt at attack south of Bakhmut has failed,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry wrote in a post accompanying the clip on Monday that was posted to X, formerly Twitter, using a derogatory term to refer to Moscow’s forces.
The decimated city of Bakhmut had borne the brunt of more than a year of some of the heaviest fighting of the ongoing war in Ukraine. A symbolic rather than a strategic stronghold, the city was described by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in mid-May as only remaining “in our hearts.”
Russian forces captured the city in May as Wagner Group mercenary forces prepared to withdraw from Donetsk, with the current front line falling just to the west of Bakhmut.
However, Ukraine has maintained its forces are battling around the settlement, and Western assessments suggest the war-torn country has retaken territory to the north and south of the city since its counteroffensive started in early June.
In the clip posted by Ukraine’s government and attributed to Ukraine’s 24th “Aidar” Assault Battalion, a convoy of Russian military vehicles makes its way through the countryside, tracked by what appears to be a Ukrainian drone. In a wider shot, plumes of smoke can be seen as the tanks are targeted by strikes, before the footage shows the remaining, burning wreckage of the military vehicles.
Newsweek cannot independently verify when or where this footage was filmed, and has reached out to Russia’s Defense Ministry for comment via email.
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, wrote in a post to Telegram on Monday that Moscow’s troops were attempting to retake positions to the north of Bakhmut, with fighting continuing to the south of the city.
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Ukrainian fighters had retaken an additional three square kilometers of territory around the southern flank of Bakhmut, Maliar added. “In general, we can talk about the liberation of 43 square kilometers of our land in this direction,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces carried out “limited counteroffensive operations” in the area around Bakhmut on Sunday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, wrote in its latest update, adding Kyiv’s fighters may have advanced over the weekend.
However, Russian forces may also have gained ground marginally around the city, the ISW wrote, citing geolocated footage from Friday showing minor advances west of Yahidne, a village just to the northwest of Bakhmut.
The Russian-backed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, told Russian state news agency Tass on Monday that Ukraine had been attempting to advance Bakhmut’s flanks, with the nearby village of Klishchiivka being a “hotbed” of clashes.
“Fighting continues in the central part of Klishchiivka,” Maliar also wrote in her Telegram post on Monday.