Speaking during a national telethon, the spokesman for the Joint Press Center of the Ukrainian Defense Forces revealed how Russian troops are working to take control of Marinka, a town in Donetsk Oblast.
The Ukrainian military spokesman said that Russian forces had attacked Ukrainian positions 23 times in just one day in the Tavria direction.
“In general, the enemy opened fire 586 times in the Tavria direction; attacked our positions 23 times,” Valerii Shershen said.
Shershen also said that 47 pieces of Russian military hardware were destroyed in the same period, including six tanks, four guns, and two self-propelled howitzers. A Buk surface-to-air missile system was also destroyed by Ukrainian forces, along with several motor vehicles and two electronic warfare systems.
The Ukrainian military spokesman also described how Ukraine’s Armed Forces are gradually seeing new successes in taking control of regions previously captured by Russian forces in the wake of the withdrawal of Wagner troops from the frontlines, with 1,293 fire missions completed by Ukrainian artillery units over the last day.
And as Ukrainian forces continue to defend their positions in Donetsk Oblast, and make some substantial gains, video footage shared on social shows exactly how Ukrainian forces are fighting back.
New Footage Tells the Story
One video, shared on Telegram and reposted to Twitter by popular war-tracking account Ukraine Weapons Tracker, offers a look at how Ukrainian forces successfully took out a Russian tank in the vicinity of Marinka.
The short clip shows the T-72B3 tank stationary in the middle of a rural field.
The tank is surrounded by several craters, though given the lack of scattered dirt around the holes, it could suggest that the craters were caused by artillery strikes that occurred weeks before the video was recorded.
The video initially shows the tank disabled after it hit an anti-tank mine in the Marinka area, and then shows an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) intercept the vehicle from the right. The tank, already disabled and unable to move, is obliterated by the strike. A cloud of dust and smoke immediately erupts into the air, with fragments of the tank left visible between the gaps in the smoke.
“A Russian T-72B3 tank with KMT-7 mine roller was disabled by an AT mine in the vicinity of Marinka, #Donetsk Oblast, and was then struck with an ATGM by Ukrainian Forces,” Ukraine Weapons Tracker writes.
#Ukraine: A Russian T-72B3 tank with KMT-7 mine roller was disabled by an AT mine in the vicinity of Marinka, #Donetsk Oblast, and was then struck with an ATGM by Ukrainian Forces. pic.twitter.com/H489AeGSVB
— ???????? Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 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.
