Ukraine smashes Russian targets in humiliating 'hide and seek' blow to Putin
A Russian armoured vehicle and an air defence system have been targeted by Kyiv with dramatic footage showing huge explosions and plumes of smoke in two separate attacks.
Ukraine smashes Russian military targets
Ukraine has smashed Russian military targets with an air defence system and combat vehicle blown sky high in two blistering attacks. Video posted online by Ukraine's Defence Ministry shows a short range Tor missile system explode after a Ukrainian High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) attack in Ukraine's Donetsk region.
The footage recorded by Ukraine's 79th Air Assault Brigade shows the Tor system being driven into a building before half of it is blown up, sending a huge cloud of smoke and debris billowing into the sky.
Ukraine's 79th Air Assault Brigade said it tracked down the air defence sytem with a drone and then struck with a US-supplied HIMARS.
It wrote on Telegram: "Our scouts inspected the 'Donbas Arena' in Donetsk from a drone and discovered the Russian antiaircraft missile complex 'Tor.' HIMARS immediately struck at its location."
The Brigade added: "Also in these shots are Russian kamikaze bikers, burned enemy tanks, and occupiers maimed by shrapnel. Another attempt by the enemy to break through our defences failed again.
"Putin's 'special operation' is going strictly according to plan. According to the plan of our paratroopers. Glory to you, warriors! Brilliant work!"
Ukraine's Defence Ministry shared the footage on X, under a comment which read: "Mr. HIMARS in action. A Russian Tor air defence system lost this hide-and-seek game."
The Donetsk and Luhansk breakaway regions have been in Moscow's sights ever since Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014.
A second video posted on X shows Ukraine's 46th Airmobile Brigade blow up a Russian Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), an armoured vehicle used to transport soldiers.
It shows the IFV as it's hit, sending a column of thick, black smoke into the air with a fire raging and successive explosions.
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Ukraine's Defence Ministry X account posted the clip under the caption: "All the abandoned Russian IFVs meet the same fate in Ukraine."
Kyiv claimed on Wednesday (July 24) that Russia has lost 8,302 tanks, 16,013 armoured combat vehicles and 902 air defence systems since Moscow's full scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The figures, which can't be independently verified, also put Russia's total personnel losses at 570,120.
Independent Russian news outlets Mediazona and Meduza recently published a joint investigation on troop deaths using data from Russia's National Probate Registry.
They found by the end of June some 120,000 Russian troops had died since the conflict began, "but the real number could be as high as 140,000", according to Newsweek.
Britain's Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff, said on Tuesday (July 23) the war in Ukraine has been "dire" for Russia, with the loss of 550,000 men.
