The Ukrainian military has released video footage of Ukrainian special forces soldiers appearing to kill 10 Russian soldiers in a trench.
The video, which the Ukrainian special forces posted on social media on Monday, shows the killing of a number of Russian fighters in a trench in southern Ukraine. said the Kiev army.
The special forces said that the Ukrainian soldiers “approached the enemy’s positions from the rear.”
The army added on Telegram that the fighters “surprised the enemy,” saying that the tape was taken by one of the soldiers participating in the clash. The Special Forces did not specify when the tape was filmed, and did not give other details about the location.
Some accounts that released the footage said that soldiers from Ukraine’s 73rd Naval Special Operations were involved and that the footage was filmed in the southern region of Zaporizhia, where Ukraine is currently engaged in offensive counter operations.
Newsweek These details cannot be independently verified nor the authenticity of the footage. The Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries have been contacted for comment via email.
The incident comes as Ukraine says it has captured an eighth settlement in its ongoing counter-offensive, saying the village of Pyatikhatky in Zaporizhzhia region has been liberated. Kiev said earlier it had taken control of the nearby village of Lubkov since it launched the first phase of its long-awaited counter-offensive earlier in June.
Warning: The video contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.
Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking soldier, released footage on Monday that he said showed Ukrainian forces capturing Pyatikatki. But Moscow on Sunday denied Kiev had taken control of the settlement, saying the attacks had been “repelled”.
The counter-attack, which experts say is still in its preliminary reconnaissance and investigation stage, focused on the eastern Donetsk region and the annexed Zaporizhia region.
“In the south, over the past week, there has been an offensive in several directions,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said on Monday. It added that Ukraine seized 113 square kilometers of territory in southern Ukraine last week.
Malyar said that several villages were captured in Donetsk, including Blahodatny and Makarivka.
“Ukrainian forces continued their counter-offensive operations on at least four sectors of the front on June 18, making limited gains on the ground,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Sunday.
However, Kiev forces may be “pausing” these counterattack efforts, the ISW added, though this would not mark the end of coordinated Ukrainian pressure against Moscow forces.
Both sides are believed to have taken a significant number of casualties since the counter-offensive began, with Russian casualties reaching their highest level since March, According to the British Ministry of Defense.
In the past week, more than 4,600 Russian servicemen have been killed or wounded, Malyar wrote in Telegram on Monday. A tally updated by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Monday put the number of Russian casualties at 630 in the past 24 hours.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukraine had lost up to 950 servicemen over the past day.
Newsweek Battlefield casualties cannot be independently verified.
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