Gruesome footage shows Ukrainian soldiers trapped on minefield
A dramatic drone video has emerged online, showing Ukrainian troops trapped in a minefield amid a counteroffensive push in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region. The dramatic footage was published on Monday by Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov, widely believed to be associated with former President Pyotr Poroshenko, but vanished from his online outlet Censor.net and social media for a short while.
The extremely gruesome video purportedly shows a botched attack by the 47th mechanized infantry brigade, an elite Ukrainian unit created last year amid the ongoing conflict with Russia. The unit is apparently well equipped with Western-supplied hardware and equipment, with multiple US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) seen in the drone video.
Footage released by Butusov shows a presumably disabled and abandoned tank with minesweeper equipment attached, as well as several Bradley vehicles. The IFVs are deploying smoke grenades in an apparent effort to provide cover for multiple injured soldiers. The fighters had seemingly disembarked at a heavily mined location, with multiple soldiers losing limbs and receiving other heavy injuries.
The IFVs are seen maneuvering on the field in an effort to pick up the wounded. One of the soldiers can be seen carefully choosing a spot to disembark as he tries to reach a comrade. The fighter ultimately picks a crater to jump into, which turns out to contain an anti-personnel mine. The resulting explosion blows off one of his legs above the knee, as the video shows.
Warning: The video is extremely gruesome.
Ukraine launched its long-heralded counteroffensive in early June, repeatedly attacking Russian positions at different points across the frontlines, with the most intense fighting observed in Donetsk People’s Republic and in Zaporozhye Region, which was officially incorporated into Russia last fall.
Thus far, the effort has failed to produce any tangible results, with thousands of servicemen and hundreds of Western-supplied pieces of military hardware lost by Kiev.
