Russian soldiers scramble for cover as they are targeted by artillery while cowering in trenches as Ukraine’s counter-offensive continues
- In footage soliders are videoed running around trenches in Donetsk Airport
- Missiles are seen raining down as they continue to scramble from oncoming fire
- UK intelligence claims that the area nearby is contested but held by Russians
- However, Ukraine claims it’s making gains in the country’s Kherson region
Footage has emerged of Russian soldiers scrambiling for cover as they are targeted by artillery while cowering in trenches as Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the south of the country continues.
Vladimir Putin’s forces are videoed by drones trying to avoid shelling by scrambling through ditches close to Donetsk Airport – which is in a Russian controlled area in the east of the country.
As they move around the corners, missiles then coming raining down causing the troops to be covered in grey smoke.
It is unclear if anyone died in the attack but some soldiers – with white armbands which the Russians have been wearing during the war – do appear to pause after being hit.
Elsewhere, over 300miles away in Kherson, Ukraine has claimed it has destroyed bridges and ammunition depots and pounded command posts in a surge of fighting which is seen as a counter-offensive.
However, Russia said it repelled the attack and inflicted heavy casualties in the Kherson region, the first major city to fall to the Russians in the war that began six months ago.
While independent verification of battlefield action has been difficult, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence report that several Ukrainian brigades had stepped up their artillery fire in frontline sectors across southern Ukraine, close to Kherson.
Russian soldiers are videoed scrambling for cover close to Donetsk Airport as they are targeted by artillery while cowering in trenches as Ukraine’s counter-offensive continues
The map below is the latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 30 August
The port city of Kherson, with a pre-war population of about 300,000, is an important economic hub close to the Black Sea.
The port remains at the heart of Ukraine’s efforts to preserve its vital access to the sea, while Russia views it as a key point in a land corridor extending from its border to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014.
Occupation forces have spoken of plans to hold a referendum on making the Kherson region a part of Russia and have pressured residents to take Russian citizenship and stop using Ukraine’s currency.
Ukraine’s presidential office reported that ‘powerful explosions continued during the day and night in the Kherson region. Tough battles are ongoing practically across all’ of the area.
Ukrainian forces, the office said, destroyed ammunition depots and all large bridges across the Dnieper River vital to supplying Russian troops.
The Ukrainian military also reported destroying a pontoon bridge on the Dnieper that the Russian forces were setting up and hitting a dozen command posts with artillery fire.
Russian state news agency Tass that reported explosions rocked Kherson on Tuesday morning – most likely caused by air defence systems.
Alluding to the talk of a major counteroffensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address on Monday that one ‘won’t hear specifics from any truly responsible person’ about Kyiv’s intentions ‘because this is war’.
Russian soldiers are seen (middle) trying to avoid shelling by scrambiling through trenches close to Donetsk Airport
The group is then seen moving around the corner in recently released footage
Then missiles fire down making the trenches full of smoke as soliders are videoed trying to get around the corner. The bottom of this image appears to be the edges of the airport
Later in the video, the smoke has expanded and appears to have covered the Russian troops
Oleksandr Shulga looks at his destroyed house following a missile strike in Mykolaiv on Monday amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian servicemen fire a Polish 155 mm self-propelled tracked gun-howitzer Krab in Donetsk, August 29
While independent verification of battlefield action has been difficult, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence report that several Ukrainian brigades had stepped up their artillery fire in frontline sectors across southern Ukraine
A firefighter takes a break to drink water as he works to extinguish a fire after a Russian attack that heavily damaged a building in Sloviansk, eastern Ukraine (Leo Correa/AP)
The British said most of Russia’s units around Kherson ‘are likely under-manned and are reliant upon fragile supply lines’ while its forces there are undergoing a significant reorganisation.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov maintained that its forces stood up well and that Ukraine lost hundreds of troops, tanks and other armoured vehicles in Monday’s action. His claim could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian independent military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told the Associated Press that ‘it will be possible to talk about the effectiveness of Ukrainian actions only after large cities are retaken’.
He added that Ukrainian forces had breached the first and the second lines of defence in the Kherson region several times in the past, ‘but it didn’t bring about results’.
Tetyana, right, takes shelter inside the basement of a residential building during a Russian attack in Sloviansk, eastern Ukraine (Leo Correa/AP)
A woman walks past a damaged administrative building in the centre of Kharkiv after a Russian rocket, August 29
Pictured: Destroyed Russian military vehicles are seen in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv
‘The most important thing is Ukrainian artillery’s work on the bridges, which the Russian military can no longer use,’ Mr Zhdanov said.
The war has ground to a stalemate over the past months, with casualties and destruction rising and the population bearing the brunt of the suffering during relentless shelling in the east and south.
Amid fears that the fighting around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant could lead to a catastrophe, a UN atomic energy agency team set out on a mission to inspect and safeguard the complex.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the area over and over.
Nikopol, a city just across the Dnieper from the plant, again came under a barrage of heavy shelling, local authorities said, with a bus station, shops and a children’s library damaged.
And a Russian missile strike targeted the city of Zaporizhzhia, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the plant, Ukraine said.
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