Ukraine Special Forces Take Out Russian Drone Unit with HIMARS Strike

Ukraine has released footage of a special forces operation that saw a Russian drone operation being successfully targeted by a HIMARS strike.

“During reconnaissance operations in the southern direction, the Special Operations Forces (SOF) found a good target – the location of Russian crews of ZALA UAVs,” the SOF Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote in a post on facebook.

“Our soldiers conducted surveillance and then adjusted the fire of the HIMARS rocket launcher at the enemy's locations.”

In the video, a Ukrainian drone records the moment a Russian UAV lands aided by a parachute in a field in an undisclosed location.

A Russian soldier collects it before walking into a white modular building. The camera then pans out to show the HIMARS strike.

No one emerges from the building after it’s struck but two men can be seen running towards it in an attempt to help.

Ukraine’s effective use of HIMARS has been extensively documented since they began receiving the US-made weapons in June of last year.

In one of the most devastating strikes, hundreds of Russian troops were killed as they gathered on a beach at a training camp on Dzharylhach Island in the occupied Kherson region in August.

Footage filmed by a drone shows a long, sandy spit of land before zooming in on a number of troop formations gathered by the shore of the Black Sea. Toward the end of the video, a large explosion is seen where the soldiers had been gathering.

Other Topics of Interest

Drone Wars –Technology, Tactics, Strategy, Countermeasures, Legislation

The impact of unmanned vehicles in the air, on the ground, and at sea could not have been predicted five years ago but their influence on the Ukrainian battlefield released the genie from the bottle.

According to Ukrainian sources, the strike was carried out using information provided by local “underground” sources in the occupied territory.

Ukraine’s National Resistance Center said in a post on Facebook: “Thanks to the information provided by the underground in the temporarily occupied territory, dozens of invaders and enemy equipment were destroyed.”