03 May 2024 , 19:51
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Ukraine killed more than 100 of Putin’s troops in a ballistic missile strike in what could be the largest loss of Russian troops in months.
A drone flying high above ground captured the moment multiple explosions hit a military training ground in occupied Luhansk, some 48 miles behind the frontlines.
The attack is typical of an ATACMS tactical ballistic missile, which showers clusters of hundreds of M74 APAM mini-bombs on targets up to 190 miles away.
It would have taken as little as 95 seconds to wipe out more than 100 Russian troops, pictured on aerial imagery standing next to trees, dirt tracks and an open field.
Footage shows a second area hit not far from the first, with a third strike over a forest.
The attack likely involved four ATACMS, according to Institute for the Study of War.
One was likely a dud, according to GeoConfirmed – a community-based platform verifying pictures and video from the conflict
‘Geolocation footage suggests that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian training ground southwest of Mozhnyakovka, killing 116 Russian troops’, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
That would make it Russia’s largest single loss in months.
Putin’s forces have occupied parts of the Luhansk region, in eastern Ukraine, since 2014.
It operated as a puppet regime until Russia annexed it in 2022, with its military capturing rest of the region in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Despite pushing Russian forces out of much of the neighbouring Kharkiv province in its autumn 2022 counteroffensive, Ukraine is now on the defensive.
It has had to ration ammunition as leaders in Europe and the US dither on continuing military aid to Ukraine.
This has allowed Russia to make advances in the town of Chasiv Yar west of Bakhmut, and past Avdiivka to Ocheretyne, all in Donetsk region.
The US Congress approved a £49,000,000,000 aid package for Ukraine in April after months of debate.
President Zelenskyy said it would ‘save thousands and thousands of lives’.
But President Biden had already secretly approved delivery of long-range ATACMS in early March, including a ‘significant’ number of them in a £241,000,000 aid package announced at the time.
US officials would not reveal the exact number of missiles shipped over, but their impact is being felt on the battlefield since their arrival last month.
Their first targets were a Russian military airfield in Crimea and Russian forces in another occupied area in April, American officials revealed.
A Ukrainian drone takes out a Russian missile launcher near Sumy (Picture: east2west)
Now the ATACMS have been used to take out more than 100 Russian troops.
In another blow for Putin, Ukrainian drones destroyed the launcher of a Buk anti-aircraft system armed with six missiles near Sumy in northeastern Ukraine.
The mobile missile system had been hidden near trees on the edge of a field before being spotted by Ukrainian special forces, who released a video of the attack on Thursday.
But Ukraine was also hit by Russian attacks.
Footage shows an IRIS-T medium range infrared homing ground-to-air system hit by two Russian Kh-35 missiles.
Moscow’s defence minister also claimed footage showed the explosion of two US-made HIMARS missile complexes as they moved by road.