Dramatic Call of Duty-style footage from Ukraine tank shows destruction of Russian forces

13 May 2022, 12:29 | Updated: 13 May 2022, 15:37

Dramatic footage that could come straight out of a war game shows a first-person perspective of a tank destroying Russian forces.

A camera positioned at the front of a Ukrainian tank turret shows it blasting targets and traversing through fiery, destroyed vehicles – one with the distinctive "Z" mark used by the invading units.

The tank is from the 92nd Mechanised Brigade, which is operating in the Kharkiv region, close to the Russian border.

"Piece by piece, village by village, together with our comrades, we are returning what's ours – something that is priceless for the whole world – the Motherland!" wrote a Ukrainian servicemen who captioned the video.

Ukraine's military said the operation has seen its forces capture enemy T-72 tanks and other armoured vehicles.

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The area is strategically important, sitting to the north of the Donbas region, and Kharkiv is Ukraine's second city.

Footage shows the Ukrainian tank firing its main gun past a tree, the blast causing the flowers on it to tear off.

The video also shows soldiers firing at distant enemies by a road, and a destroyed Russian tank with the distinctive white markers.

Having failed to capture Kyiv and been forced into a humiliating retreat, Russia's forces are focusing in their push in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian tanks seen firing on the Russians in Call Of Duty-esque footage

Those are areas where two breakaway pro-Russian regions are contained, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, and where Ukraine has concentrated its "Joint Forces Operation" units against them.

In an update on Friday, the British Ministry of Defence said: "Russia is investing significant effort in the vicinity of Izium and Severodonetsk in an attempt to achieve a breakthrough towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

"The primary objective on this axis is to envelop Ukrainian forces in the Joint Forces Operation area, isolating them from support or reinforcement by units in the west of the country," the update said.

"Ukrainian forces successfully prevented an attempted Russian river crossing in the Donbas."

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It said images indicate a Russian Battalion Tactical Group was attacked while attempting to cross the Siverskyi Donets river west of Severodonetsk, where is bridging and much of its armoured equipment was destroyed.

'Conducting river crossings in a contested environment is a highly risky manoeuvre and speaks to the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine," the update said.

'Russian forces have failed to make any significant advances despite concentrating forces in this area after withdrawing and redeploying units from the Kyiv and Chernihiv Oblasts."