A single strike targeted high-rise building where command staff were positioned in Volchansk, Kharkov Region, officials have said
Russian warplanes have obliterated a Ukrainian-held building in the border Kharkov Region where a number of officers were posted, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced on Monday, releasing video footage of the strike.
The ministry said in a statement that its forces had destroyed a Ukrainian temporary deployment point near the town of Volchansk, which is about six miles from the Russian border. The area around the town has been the scene of fierce fighting since Russia launched its offensive in Kharkov Region to establish a ‘cordon sanitaire’ to protect civilians from repeated shelling.
Officials said that “a powerful blow to the enemy” was delivered after Russian warplanes received target coordinates from reconnaissance and used a glide bomb to attack the facility.
“At the time of the strike, the command staff of one of the Ukrainian Armed Forces units was in the temporary deployment point,” the statement read, without specifying Kiev’s losses.
The video released by the ministry shows what appears to be aerial footage of Volchansk, which has been ravaged by months of fighting. A ramshackle high-rise building in the center is then hit by a gliding projectile, with an explosion so powerful that the ripples from the shockwaves could be seen hundreds of meters away as one of the walls promptly collapsed. Clouds of smoke and dust can then be seen rising from the blast site.
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Russia often relies on heavy glide bombs, which can travel dozens of kilometers before accurately hitting their target, to destroy Ukrainian fortified positions and other high-priority installations. Ukrainian officials have described the weapon as posing a “very serious threat,” noting that they are difficult to intercept.
