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In a video that went viral on Twitter Sunday night, a massive explosion rips through what appears to be a Russian convoy, scoring a direct hit on a surface-to-air missile system.
The black-and-white footage, posted to the account of the Ukrainian armed forces, is one of several that have emerged on social media in recent days showing the devastating impact of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian hardware. As the drone’s payload explodes in the video—which appears to be a cellphone recording of a screen in a Ukrainian drone facility—people at the facility can be heard gasping in awe before breaking out in cheers and applause.
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The video racked up more than 3 million views on Twitter in two days. “Have fear, enemies! There will be no peace for you on our earth!” the Ukrainian armed forces wrote in the video’s caption.
The star of this video and others circulating on Twitter is the Bayraktar TB2 – a type of Turkish drone that the Ukrainian military has increasingly deployed against Russian forces in recent days. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military said that Bayraktar drones had destroyed one tank and two surface-to-air missile systems overnight. In other videos shared on Twitter, Bayraktar drones, in use by the military since at least 2021, are shown blowing up what appears to be a Russian fuel convoy and a group of supply trucks.
The drones are small and lightweight, (around seven times lighter than the U.S. military’s Reaper drone,) with a 12-meter wingspan that allows them to remain in the sky for up to 30 hours at a time. Each drone can each carry four laser-guided missiles, according to promotional material from Baykar Technologies, the company that produces them.
The impact of Bayraktar drones in Ukraine
Ukraine’s drone campaign has contributed to its early successes in slowing the Russian advance, and is revealing unexpected weaknesses on the part of the Russian army, U.S. and European military analysts say. Perhaps more…
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Source : time
