BMP-1 Hit By Drone In Bilohorivka – Ukraine’s Armed Forces released video footage recently showing a drone damaging a Russian BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle abandoned in no man’s land in Donetsk Oblast.
In the clip, recorded by a rotary-blade drone, the abandoned vehicle is seen abandoned in a field with an open hatch. As the drone approached the vehicle, which appeared to be stuck in a crater in the ground, an F-1 hand grenade could be seen falling from the air.
The drone quickly rises into the air to avoid being damaged by the blast that followed. Still, by the limited smoke seen coming from the inside of the vehicle, it looks as though the strike merely caused additional damage rather than destroying or disabling the vehicle completely.
Popular war-tracking Twitter account Ukraine Weapons Tracker noted that the video was recorded near Bilohorivka.
“In no man’s land near Bilohorivka, #Donetsk Oblast, a drone of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade dropped a F-1 hand grenade inside an abandoned Russian BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle, damaging it,” a post from the account writes.
While Bilohorivka is in Luhansk Oblast, the post from Ukraine Weapons Tracker indicates the strike took place in neighboring Donetsk Oblast, close to the settlement.
Bilohorivka Remains Under Ukrainian Control
In January, Luhansk Regional Military Administration leader Serhii Haidai said that Ukrainian forces are holding their positions in Bilohorivka, but painted a grim picture of the buildings and infrastructure in the village.
During a briefing, Haidai described how “quite serious hostilities” going on in the region have completely destroyed the urban area.
“Our Defense Forces are holding their positions. They have even improved them a little and are preventing the occupation troops from advancing. But both before that and after that, the territory of the settlement of Bilohorivka was simply destroyed by intense shelling, and it is still being shelled by heavy artillery, tanks, aerial bombs, and rockets. Today, unfortunately, Bilohorivka no longer exists as a settlement,” Haidai said.
#Ukraine: In no man’s land near Bilohorivka, #Donetsk Oblast, a drone of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade dropped a F-1 hand grenade inside an abandoned Russian BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle, damaging it. pic.twitter.com/yL5ongKnj9
— ???????? Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 4, 2023
In February, Haidai reconfirmed that Ukrainian forces remained in control of the area, which became the last part of the Luhansk region not under the control of the Russians. Haidai said that despite claims from the Russian Federation about the capture of Bilohorivka and the removal of Ukrainian soldiers, the village remains under the control of Kyiv.
“Our troops remain in their positions, nobody has captured Bilohorivka, nobody has entered there, there is no enemy there,” he said.
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
