US Volunteer Fires at Russians with RPG-Machine Gun Combo in Ukraine Video

New footage appears to show a U.S. volunteer fighting in Ukraine firing on Russian soldiers with a rocket-propelled grenade and a machine gun, as Kyiv's troops battle on against Russian advances along the frontline.

In a brief clip posted to social media on Monday, what looks to be a body camera captures the fighter using the shoulder-fired RPG in a moving vehicle before switching to a burst of machine-gun fire.

It isn't clear when, or where, the footage was filmed. Newsweek contacted the poster for comment and couldn't independently verify the video.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine nearly 23 months ago, international volunteers have traveled to the war-torn country to fight on Kyiv's behalf. Shortly after the outbreak of full-scale war in February 2022, Ukraine called for foreign nationals willing to fight for Ukraine to join the newly created International Legion, just one of the ways in which volunteers have joined Kyiv's fight.

U.S. volunteers are among the international fighters known to have been killed in the almost two years of war. Foreigners have fought, and died, in some of the bloodiest battles up and down the frontline, from the devastated city of Bakhmut, now under Russian control, to Avdiivka, where Moscow's troops are slowly encircling defending Ukrainian forces.

Several U.S. volunteers are known to have been killed in Ukraine, including 21-year-old Ethan Hertweck, who died in mid-December in Avdiivka. Nick Maimer, a former U.S. Green Beret, died in the fiercely contested Donetsk city of Bakhmut in mid-May 2023.

In an operational update early on Tuesday, the Ukrainian military said its forces had held off two Russian attacks in the villages of Klishchiivka and Andriivka, just south of Bakhmut.

"Russian and Ukrainian forces continued positional engagements north and south of Bakhmut on January 8, but there were no confirmed frontline changes," the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said in its latest update.

Ukraine repelled three Russian attacks close to Avdiivka, and another 15 close to the villages of Pervomaiske and Nevelske, southwest of Avdiivka. Ukraine recorded another dozen Russian attacks around the demolished town of Marinka, near the regional capital, Donetsk City.

Russia's forces "marginally advanced" on the southern edge of the village of Novomykhailivka, directly south of Marinka, the ISW said on Sunday. Russia's defense ministry said on Tuesday that its forces had attacked Ukrainian positions in Novomykhailivka, preventing nine attacks in the area.

A Russian military blogger — influential in Russian defense and military circles — claimed that Moscow's troops are trying to reach the village of Heorhiivka, immediately west of Marinka, to capture the town of Kurakhove, the ISW said at the weekend.

Geolocated footage from Sunday indicates that Russia advanced on the eastern edge of Heorhiivka, the ISW said on Monday.

Shortly after Russia claimed control of most of Marinka in late December, Serhiy Hrabsky, a military analyst and former Ukrainian army colonel, told Newsweek that Ukraine's grasp around Novomykhailivka "will significantly deteriorate" in light of Russian advances. Moscow could then work its way to the town of Kurakhove, he added.

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