WATCH Russian heavy flamethrower strike Ukrainian positions
The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday shared footage of a TOS-1A multiple rocket launcher striking Ukrainian positions.
The battlefield video was taken near Soledar, a Donetsk People’s Republic town located to the northeast of the city Artyomovsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut). The system, widely known by the nickname ‘Solntsepyok’ – ‘Scorching Sunlight’, is seen firing multiple projectiles at night.
The strike was observed by a surveillance UAV fitted with an infrared camera. The massive 220-mm thermobaric weapon is seen leaving large glowing spots on the ground after hits, footage shows. While the system is effectively a short-range multiple rocket launcher mounted on a tank chassis, TOS-1As are classified in Russia as “heavy flamethrowers.”
In its most recent daily briefing, the Defense Ministry claimed that Ukraine lost an estimated 1,800 soldiers lost over the past 24 hours. It also reported the destruction of various pieces of hardware used by Kiev’s forces, including multiple artillery pieces, both Western-supplied and older Soviet-era systems.
The most intense combat continued near Artyomovsk, as well as in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region, with an estimated 535 and 300 casualties inflicted on Ukrainian troops in the two areas, respectively, according to the briefing. Russian forces recently crossed the border at multiple locations into Kharkov Region.
The offensive comes as part of the effort to push Ukrainian forces further away from Russian territory and thus stop the indiscriminate artillery and drone strikes on border settlements, including the city of Belgorod. The Ukrainian strikes, which the Russian Defense Ministry says primarily target civilian infrastructure and residential areas, have inflicted considerable material damage and resulted in dozens of civilian deaths.
