Russian forces have blown up a building with a Ukrainian infantry squad inside, RT Russian has reported, releasing video of a relentless drone hunt in a Donbass town.
An undated five-minute clip shared by RT war correspondent Andrey Filatov on Tuesday shows intense battlefield action in Krasonogorovka, about eleven miles (18km) west of Donetsk and nine miles east of the key Ukrainian-controlled logistics hub of Kurakhovo.
The footage, filmed from a reconnaissance drone, begins with operators spotting three Ukrainian military vehicles approaching the town at high speed. The Russian drone operators, who had the opportunity to observe the entire process of the redeployment from above, later become excited when they see a vehicle – a US-made Hummer or Humvee – carrying at least six Ukrainian soldiers.
As one of the vehicles comes to a halt next to a dilapidated building, several consecutive explosions go off a few meters away from the soldiers as the troops are apparently hit by Russian artillery. While the first explosion appears to have caused no casualties, it is unclear if the same was true for the others. Meanwhile, a Russian UAV continued to buzz the entrance to the building, dropping a bomb on a trajectory that allowed it to fly directly into the hangar where at least some of the soldiers were taking shelter.
The clip later shows an armed Ukrainian soldier in a flak jacket walking inside the building, which is then rocked by another explosion, sending clouds of smoke through the skeleton roof. Despite poor visibility, a Russian drone operator is heard shouting that the strike had hit the infantryman.
Krasonogorovka lies on the approaches to Kurakhovo, a town on a key road leading to the regional logistical hub at Pokrovsk, which is essential for supplying all Ukrainian forces in Donbass. The Kurakhovo area has been the scene of fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces since October, after Moscow made significant gains in the region in recent months.