Ukraine Ministry of Defense
- Ukraine's military shared a video of a strike on a Russian storage site near Bakhmut.
- According to Ukraine's MOD, HIMARS took out a large store of 9M127 Vikhr laser-beam-guided missiles.
- Those missiles are used by the Ka-52, one of Russia's most deadly helicopters.
Ukraine's military shared a video on Wednesday of the fiery destruction of what it said was a massive ammunition dump used for Russia's Ka-52 helicopters, located near Bakhmut.
In the aerial footage, first shared by Ukraine's Special Forces on Telegram, five trucks can be seen gathered around a small cluster of buildings by a body of water — the picture is clear enough to discern a single soldier transferring goods from one truck to another.
Within seconds, the pair of trucks are engulfed in an explosion, followed by several others. Soon, the entire surrounding area is blazing and charred.
"Greetings from HIMARS," Ukraine's Ministry of Defense wrote in a post on X touting the bombardment on Thursday.
—Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 7, 2023
Ukraine's MOD said the strike took place at the village of Myronivs'kyi, which sits at the very edge of where the Luhansk region borders Donetsk.
It's about 15 miles southeast of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian troops have been making small gains in recent days, according to an assessment by the US think tank The Institute for the Study of War.
Google Earth/Insider
According to Ukraine's Special Forces, reconnaissance officers spotted the site before passing its coordinates over to an artillery team.
The blast site served as a storage depot for 9M127 Vikhr guided missiles, which are used by Russian Ka-50 and Ka-52 helicopters, the MOD said. Insider was unable to independently verify what was stored there, or exactly the artillery used.
Laser-beam-guided Vikhr missiles can travel up to five miles when launched from a helicopter and are highly effective against heavy armor.
The Ka-52, known in Ukraine as "Putin's vulture," is considered one of the most powerful helicopters in the air. Early in Ukraine's counteroffensive they exacted a heavy toll on Ukrainian armored vehicles, as Insider's Ryan Pickrell reported.
This status has made the helicopter a prime target for Ukrainian troops, including the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which claims to have taken out eight of them.