Russian troops have been caught on film panicking and repeatedly swearing in the aftermath of a Ukrainian air strike.
An explosion on Wednesday in Pochepsky, a Russian district to the north of the Ukrainian border, left a group of soldiers confused as to whether a fighter jet or drone had struck a nearby building.
“Damn it, damn it,” one man is heard saying over the sound of something swooping towards the ground, in a video circulated on social media.
A loud explosion follows and the view from the camera is completely engulfed by the sight of bright orange flames. The group of shoulders are then seen scuttling along the floor on their hands and knees as they get away from it.
“F–k it,” one of the soldiers screams. Another voice can be heard saying amid the panic: “Looks like it was a drone, f–king hell.”
As they sprint from the scene of the strike, the men begin to ask themselves whether it could have been a fighter jet.
“No, no, it’s definitely a drone,” one of the men shouts. “No, that was a fighter jet,” another responds.
“We better not be standing there. F–k, thank God we’re alive, holy s–t,” one man yells, his voice shaking.
Greater ability to strike deep inside Russia
The panicked scenes occurred on the same day as a long-range attack hit one of Russia’s largest ammunition depots.
It highlighted the potential of what Ukraine’s forces could achieve if Western governments allowed them to strike targets deep inside Russia with Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles.
The ammunition dump at Toropets, some 240 miles west of Moscow, would have been a perfect target for either of the missiles, which have been donated by the British, French and Americans.
The Storm Shadow’s bunker-busting warhead could have been used to penetrate any hardened bunkers used to store ammunition, while America’s ATACMS, armed with cluster munition warheads, would have been able to scatter thousands of bomblets to detonate any Russian ammunition being stored in the open air.
By Wednesday afternoon, around 30,000 tons of shells were reported to have exploded, with secondary detonations still ongoing.
Ukraine’s SBU security service told local media outlets that Ukrainian drones had “literally wiped off the face of the earth a large warehouse of the main missile and artillery department”.
Toropets is nearly 300 miles from the Ukrainian border, a demonstration of Ukraine’s improved drone-strike capabilities.
While at the outer reaches of the Storm Shadow’s maximum range, the threat of the missile’s use inside Russia would prevent Moscow from storing ammunition so close to the front line.
