[imagesource: YouTube / The Guardian]

All is not going to plan for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

His troops have shown signs of being woefully underprepared for the level of resistance they have encountered, and there’s no doubt he’s seen those videos of Ukrainians towing away Russian tanks and celebrating.

I sincerely hope this drone footage, showing a Ukrainian ambush on a Russian armoured column just outside the eastern Kyiv suburb of Brovary, has ruined his weekend plans.

It’s been confirmed as legit by both Sky News and The Guardian. According to the latter, open-source investigator Bellingcat geolocated the video to an area about 35 kilometres from the centre of Kyiv:

[The area provides] a direct route to the east of the capital where Russian forces have been trying to mass.

The edited 45-second video, which was released by Ukraine’s armed forces, is a montage of the fighting on the road and shows a company or more of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles coming under repeated attack. Its production quality means the fighting filmed may not have taken place on Thursday.

It is overlaid with an audio of what appears to be a Russian officer reporting an attack to his superiors. This is presented as an effective commentary on the fighting shown. It also said the regiment’s commander was killed, named by Ukrainian media as Col Andrei Zakharov, although this could not be independently confirmed.

In the audio, the ‘Russian officer’ can be heard saying, “Lots of losses. They waited for us. Head of the convoy got into the ambush. Regiment commander killed in action.”

The audio isn’t included in either of these videos.

Sky News has broken down the footage in greater detail, giving a clear idea of what’s happening at each step:

Military experts who viewed the video said it showed surprising tactics on the part of the Russian forces:

Ben Barry, a former tank commander with the British army and a land warfare specialist with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a thinktank, said: “They either think they are going through a safe area, or they were not well trained or they are moving fast for some other requirement.”

…Having watched the footage, he said he thought the Russian armour was probably targeted with artillery or mortar fire because the nature of the blasts.

Rob Lee, a former US marine and PhD student at King’s College London, was even more critical, saying the convoy displayed “very poor tactics”.

And then, just when you think it can’t get any worse, the South African government offers to get involved in mediation.

[source:guardian]