Ukraine video shows Russian tank convoy “crushed” by Azov fighters

Kyiv’s fighters “crushed” a convoy of Russian armored vehicles in northeastern Ukraine, according to the country’s military, ahead of an anticipated Russian push as early as next month.

Ukrainian reconnaissance assets zeroed in on an armored column close to Ukrainian positions near the Russian-controlled eastern city of Kreminna, the Azov Brigade, which is now part of Ukraine’s National Guard, said in a statement on Saturday.

Russia launched an assault on the Donetsk city of Avdiivka in mid-October 2023, and captured the strategic settlement in mid-February. While Moscow’s main efforts concentrated on that settlement, clashes have continued along the long front line snaking from Kreminna down to Ukraine’s southern Kherson region.

“The soldiers of the 12th Azov Brigade and the 95th Air Assault Brigade crushed the enemy convoy” near the village of Terny, the Azov Brigade said in a post to messaging app Telegram. Russian forces lost 11 pieces of equipment, and the Ukrainian brigade took a T-72B2M tank, Azov’s press service said.

A total of 50 Russian fighters were killed, the brigade added, sharing footage purportedly showing the attack.

The video appears to show Ukrainian kamikaze drones heading for a line of armored vehicles, with airborne drones capturing footage of explosions along the convoy. A final shot in the video appears to show the captured Russian tank.

Newsweek could not independently verify the brigade’s claims, nor the footage published by the fighters. The Russian Defense Ministry has been approached for comment via email.

Russian forces have slowly advanced towards the village of Terny, west of their current positions. The U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), recently evaluated that Moscow’s troops were within around 700 meters of the village.

Ukraine’s military said on Sunday that its forces “repelled” seven Russian attacks around Terny in the past day. “The enemy tried to break through our troops’ defenses,” Kyiv said in a statement.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it had fought off “two counterattacks by assault groups from the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade” around Terny.

Ukraine’s Azov Brigade rose out of the Azov Battalion, and has roots in far-right ideology and ultranationalism from which it has sought to distance itself over the course of the full-scale war. Moving past a volunteer battalion, the brigade has been absorbed into Ukraine’s National Guard.

Kyiv has warned that Russia will likely start a new offensive in late May or during the summer, and that it is amassing new troops for the effort.

Some Western analysts, such as the ISW think tank, have suggested that Russia may focus on the western parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region “in hopes of building upon Russian forces’ steady but marginal advances in this sector.”