The Russian military has destroyed another deployment point housing Ukrainian soldiers and foreign instructors in the industrial part of the city of Kharkov, according to a report released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday.
The ministry shared a video on its official Telegram channel purporting to show the attack on the facility, which reportedly belongs to a construction company, using the Iskander-M. The missile system launches hypersonic missiles carrying a 700kg payload and is capable of hitting targets up to 500km away. It’s stated that the strike took out some 100 fighters, 40 of whom were foreign instructors and 60 were Ukrainian servicemen.
Another video shared by the ministry several hours later also supposedly shows an Iskander-M group missile strike on the Kharkov Armored Plant. Two workshops for repairing armored vehicles were destroyed in the attack, halting the facility’s operations, the report claimed.
Earlier this week, the ministry reported another attack on a deployment point for foreign instructors located in the town of Dergachi in Kharkov Region. The facility was also destroyed using the Iskander-M system and some 50 foreigners were said to have been eliminated in the strike.
The targeted attacks against foreign instructors operating in Ukraine come after repeated warnings by Moscow that any military personnel or weapons sent from abroad to aid Kiev are considered legitimate targets for Russian forces.
“The fact is that any instructors involved in training the military of the Ukrainian regime do not have any immunity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed last month in response to discussions in the EU, particularly in France, about sending Western military instructors to Ukraine.
It’s unclear how many foreign instructors are currently operating in Ukraine. However, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service reported earlier this month that the French army was growing “concerned” about the increased number of Frenchmen who have been killed during the Ukraine conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also recently stated that Western military trainers have “long been present” in Ukraine “under the guise of mercenaries” and have continued to suffer casualties.