Ukraine’s armed forces have released video they said demonstrates the destruction of Russian tanks as Kyiv said its troops had recaptured eight settlements since the start of its counteroffensive.
Ukraine’s General Staff tweeted an approximately two-minute video it said showed troops from the 128th separate mountain-assault Transcarpathian brigade who had “liberated the settlement of Piatykhatky in the Zaporizhzhia region from the Russian invaders.”
The video’s release comes amid assessments that Ukraine had put its long-awaited push on pause, which U.S.-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War noted on Monday was a “common feature” of major offensive undertakings.
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The aerial footage set to dramatic music switches from infrared to color and shows explosions from different angles of what appear to be Russian vehicles.
The video shows a Ukrainian UR-77 Meteorit mine-clearing vehicle, which can be used for offensive operations, firing on Russian targets.
Video from other angles shows explosions and smoke rising after purported strikes on Russian positions. There are also missile views of a strike on Russian vehicles driving along the road before impact, then segueing into a distant view of the burning remains.
The end of the video shows a group of six Ukrainian soldiers from the brigade holding their country’s blue and yellow flag and touting the success of regaining Pyatikhatka after the Russians had fled dumping vehicles, ammunition, and weapons.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry about the video which has not been independently verified.
Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said on Monday that the settlement was the eighth Kyiv had recaptured since the start of the counteroffensive this month.
Бійці 128-ї окремої гірсько-штурмової Закарпатської бригади визволили від російських окупантів населений пункт П’ятихатки Запорізької області.
Слава Україні та її воїнам!🇺🇦
Головнокомандувач ЗС України/CinC AF ofUkraine Сухопутні війська ЗС України Оперативне командування “Захід” pic.twitter.com/f2IgC9B2W3— Генеральний штаб ЗСУ (@GeneralStaffUA) June 19, 2023
Ukrainian troops have released videos in which their flags are flown in the seven other settlements in the Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk regions. She said that Russia had suffered “significant losses” of troops and equipment.
According to the Institute for the Study of War’s assessment on Monday, the head of Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center, Colonel Margo Grosberg, said on June 16 “we won’t see an offensive over the next seven days.” The think tank had previously said that Kyiv has not yet launched its main effort or committed the majority of its forces to the counteroffensive.
To succeed, Ukraine’s forces will have to penetrate heavily fortified Russian defense lines along the 600-mile front line. “It will require considerable human and materiel cost,” said Nicolò Fasola, a research fellow at the University of Bologna in Italy, whose research focuses on Russia’s military strategies.
“The way the Russians have devised their defense lines across the southeast of Ukraine will contribute to such a cost for Ukraine,” he told Newsweek. “The Russians are quite good at these kind of operations, because they’ve been preparing for a long time.”