A Ukraine Drone Hovered Over Russian Troops. Then A Rocket Rained Fire

A drone this week helped Ukrainian troops attack a military training facility of Russian troops in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine.

As the Ukrainian drone spotted the Russian troops, a 660-pound rocket, reportedly packed with hundreds of grenade-sized submunitions, attacked them.

At the time of the attack on October 15, there were about 24 soldiers in the area, Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces said in a statement on Facebook without specifying the number of casualties.

They also tagged a video that showed the drone footage of an initial explosion at the facility followed by a number of additional blasts in the area.

According to reports, there have been about seven attacks on Russian trainees all along the 700-mile front line since February.

GMLRS cluster munitions cover a pile of Russian infantry at another training ground in the South.

The adjustments were carried out by operators of the 128th Separate Mechanized Brigade and the Black Forest Brigade using Shark reconnaissance UAVs. pic.twitter.com/YYZvGegr5u — WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) October 16, 2024

Ukraine claims it has killed about 6.7 lakh Russian troops since the war began in 2022. The Ukrainian Defence Forces said on Saturday that they have destroyed 144 Russian artillery brigades, equivalent to $ 8 billion, this year.

Earlier today, regional officials said that Ukraine launched a series of drones targeting Moscow and western Russia.

Russia's air-defence units destroyed at least one drone flying towards Moscow, the mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin said.

According to preliminary information, there was no damage or casualties where debris fell in the Ramensky district of the Moscow region.

Drone debris sparked several short-lived fires in the Lipetsk region in southwestern Russia, the region's governor said. No injuries were reported, he added.

Governors of the Bryansk and Oryol regions, also in western parts of Russia, reported that air defence units destroyed several drones there.

Ukraine has often said in the past that its air attacks target infrastructure key to Russia's war efforts and are a response to Moscow's continued air attacks.

Russian officials, on the other hand, often do not disclose the full extent of damage inflicted by the drone attacks, especially on military, transport or energy infrastructure.

(With agency inputs)