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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Milo Boyd

Moment Ukrainian special forces destroy entire Russian convoy in ambush attack

A Russian convoy has been left burnt out and smouldering after it was ambushed by Ukrainian special forces (SS0).

Images of the destruction wreaked by the elite fighting squad shows the column of armoured vehicles reduced to charred remains.

The convoy had been moving from Kharkiv in the east of the country to Izyum, about 80 miles away, earlier this week when it was attacked.

A huge explosion triggered by SSO operators stopped the vehicles in their tracks, the Ukrainian Ground Forces said while releasing images of the destruction.

Having learned of the route the Russians planned to take, Ukrainian saboteurs planted TNT at key points along the road and underneath a bridge before detonating it as the armoured machines rolled above.

Ukraine release images of the ambush (General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine)

Several vehicles were destroyed in the blasts, after which SSO operators and members of the Ukrainian army swept in to fight surviving Russian troops.

The attack comes as fighting continues to rage in the east and south of the country, after Russian forces abandoned their efforts to take control of Kyiv.

They have now focused manpower on taking control of Kharkiv in the east and Mariupol in the south.

The invading forces enjoyed a major breakthrough on Wednesday when 1,026 soldiers of Ukraine's 36th Marine Brigade, including 162 officers, surrendered in Mariupol, Russia claimed.

Russian television on Wednesday broadcast clips of what it said was the surrender.

The convoy was attacked as it crossed a bridge (General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine)

In the footage, unarmed men in military fatigues were visible walking with their hands up along a grass- and tree-lined path towards masked soldiers cradling assault rifles.

In one clip, four marines walked away from a damaged industrial building carrying a wounded person on a stretcher. One of the four carried a makeshift white flag as well. Wounded men were loaded onto a yellow bus.

An unidentified Russian soldier said: "You may be scared or not, but it is necessary to surrender anyway. The choice is not a big one. First, the encircling is tight enough.

Mariupol has been bombarded since the war began (REUTERS)

"Second, there are at least five echelons (of troops), so it is not that simple to exit if someone would think that he can easily leave."

More than a dozen solders were lined up in formation in a dark room, where an unidentified prisoner of war said in Russian: "I was in a group of 13 to 15 men who moved together and survived. We had to surrender as we had been encircled."

The main Sea of Azov port is the biggest target in the eastern Donbas region that Moscow now calls the focus of its campaign. If captured, it would be the first major city to fall since the war began.

Its capture would help secure a land passage between separatist-held eastern areas and Crimea, which Russia seized and annexed in 2014.

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