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Smashed to Pieces: Video Shows Ukraine Hitting Russian Air Defenses

A video clip shared by the 45th Separate Artillery Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Thursday shows the moment that Ukrainian forces took out a Russian Pantsir missile system.

Pantsir
Pantsir Air Defense System. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Watch Russian Pantsir System Get Destroyed in Ukraine – A video clip shared by the 45th Separate Artillery Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Thursday shows the moment that Ukrainian forces took out a Russian Pantsir missile system.

The video, recorded from a drone, was apparently recorded in the Bakhmut direction. 

The video shows the missile system being moved by Russian soldiers on a residential road.

Two vehicles are seen parked closely together on the residential road. The vehicles and soldiers are surrounded by what looks like destroyed residential buildings. 

The soldiers are quickly startled by an explosion to the left of the vehicles, prompting three men to flee the scene.

An additional, smaller Russian vehicle is also seen fleeing. 

Once the men have left the scene, the missile system can be seen bursting into flames. As the fire clears, the weapon continues to emit huge plumes of thick, dark smoke.

Additional video footage recorded from a distance shows the smoke rising hundreds of feet into the air, and a final look at the Pantsir system long after the strike shows it reduced to a pile of warped metal. 

“Bakhmut direction. Air reconnaissance 45 OABr discovered Pantsyr S1, in cooperation with the missile division and air reconnaissance 132 ORB, the complex was turned into scrap metal,” the post from the 45th Separate Artillery Brigade reads in Ukrainian. 

Geolocators confirmed that the strike occurred in Paraskoviivka in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Video footage and satellite imagery are compared in a post by a volunteer from the @GeoConfirmed Twitter account, noting that the strike took place on the precise coordinates 48.675219, 38.005792. 

Pantsir Missile Systems Are Essential for Russian Security

Russia’s “Pantsir” is a family of surface-to-air missile systems used by the Russian military since 2012.

The missiles recently made the headlines when President Vladimir Putin accused Ukrainian forces of attempting to conduct two drone strikes on the Kremlin. The drones were intercepted by Pantsir missile systems that have been installed in several locations across the nation’s capital city. 

The missile systems appear to have been installed on the rooftops of cathedrals and other significant buildings across Moscow. 

The Pantsir missile system includes several variations of the weapon, some of which are fitted to an 8×8 Kamaz truck chassis, while others are fitted to the GM-series tracked chassis. Each Pantsir system can carry up to 12 missiles.

The video could be considered graphic so we have not embedded it. However, you can see it here

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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.

Written By

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.

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