Russian Assault Convoy Destroyed in Precision Aerial Attack

Ukraine's military has released a video that purportedly shows its forces destroying a Russian assault convoy in a precision aerial attack.

"Another failed Russian assault," Ukraine's Defense Ministry said on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, sharing footage of the attack, which was filmed by Ukraine's 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade.

Yuriy Mysiagin, a member of Ukraine's Parliament and deputy of Ukraine's VRU Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, said the footage shows the destruction of an assault column of Russian military equipment in the city of Krasnohorivka, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

The video shows the moment Ukraine's forces strike a Russian target, causing an explosion and a huge column to rise into the air upon impact. Newsweek couldn't independently verify when or where the footage was filmed, and has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment by email.

The Donetsk region and the Luhansk region forms Ukraine's Donbas area. The Kremlin has been pushing for the total capture of the regions since Russia's initial invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Russia and Ukraine are suffering significant losses of its troops and equipment as fighting ramps up in Ukraine's east. Kyiv, like Moscow, rarely provides updated information on its war casualties. A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment leaked in April 2023—just over a year into the war—said that Ukraine had suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, including 15,500 to 17,500 dead.

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, which posts figures on Russia's troop and equipment losses as part of its daily update on the war, said Russia lost 46 artillery systems in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 16,056.

In its latest update on Tuesday, Ukraine's military said Russia lost 1,060 soldiers over the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 577,060.

Moscow has also lost a total of 16,141 armored combat vehicles, 8,381 tanks, 21,687 vehicles and fuel tanks, 906 anti-aircraft warfare systems, 363 military jets, 326 helicopters and 28 warships in the ongoing war, Kyiv's military said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in its latest update on Monday that its military has so far destroyed 631 Ukrainian aircraft, 278 helicopters, 28,647 unmanned aerial vehicles, 556 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,714 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,392 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 12,535 pieces of field artillery and mortars, as well as 24,178 units of special military vehicles.

Neither Ukraine nor Russia releases detailed or regular casualty numbers or updates of their equipment losses. Newsweek has not independently verified these figures.

The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based independent think tank, said in analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Monday that Russian forces are reportedly approaching the outskirts of Chasiv Yar in Ukraine's Donetsk region "but are unlikely to threaten the settlement with encirclement or seizure in the coming months."

Its capture would offer Russian forces "limited but not insignificant operational benefits if they could achieve it," the think tank added.

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