The war in Ukraine could go down in the history books as one of the bloodiest of the 21st century.
It seems clear now that Putin has badly miscalculated and has no clear way to defeat Ukraine – thanks to massive amounts of Western military aid.
What happens next? We turn to social media now for some vital clues…
Watch the Ukraine War Footage
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has seen both sides of the conflict regularly deploy kamikaze-style drones, designed to be flown with great precision toward a target and explode upon impact.
In most instances, the drones are used to strike stationary targets, but in video footage recently shared on social media back in March, it was revealed just how talented many of the operators of these drones have now become.
What We Know
A clip reposted onto Twitter by popular war-tracking account @PaulJawin shows how a Ukrainian drone operator was able to take out a moving Russian tank from miles away.
The video, recorded from the perspective of the kamikaze drone, shows the drone flying from a high altitude and gradually getting closer to a moving Russian tank.
The operator, reportedly from the K2 group of the 54th Mechanized Brigade, expertly flies the drone behind the moving tank and towards an open hatch.
As the drone gets close to the tank, the tank operator’s helmet can be seen through the open hatch.
When the drone reaches the hatch, the video feed immediately cuts off, indicating that the drone hit the target and exploded.
“Siversk-Soledar. Soldiers of the K2 battalion hit an abandoned Russian tank with an FPV kamikaze drone,” Paul Jawin writes on Twitter.
While the exact location of the video was not confirmed, the 54th Mechanized Brigade is based in Bakhmut, suggesting that the strike took place somewhere near the city or elsewhere in Donetsk Oblast.
Another video, also reposted to Twitter by Paul Jawin from the same time period, shows a more conventional kamikaze drone attack destroying an abandoned Russian tank.
In the clip, also recorded from the drone’s perspective, the tank can be seen abandoned on the edge of a dirt road in a rural field.
The clip identifies the tank from aerial footage from afar, and a split-screen video shows the tank exploding while the drone’s footage cuts off the moment it strikes the vehicle.
The tank can then be seen emitting plumes of white smoke, before eventually cutting off. It is unknown whether the tank was ultimately destroyed or simply suffered some damage.
“Siversk-Soledar. Soldiers of the K2 battalion hit an abandoned Russian tank with an FPV kamikaze drone,” Jawin writes.
The exact location of the strike was discovered by geolocation Twitter accounts, who used photographic evidence to determine that it took place at 48.8149, 38.2786, Donetsk Oblast.
Siversk-Soledar. Soldiers of the K2 battalion hit an abandoned Russian tank with an FPV kamikaze drone. pic.twitter.com/l8GrnnhbhT
— Paul Jawin (@PaulJawin) March 6, 2023
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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