Ukrainian fighters blow up a deadly Russian vacuum bomb launcher

Ukrainian fighters’ joy as they blow up one of Russia’s deadly vacuum bomb launchers in enormous explosion

• Ukrainian fighters overjoyed blowing up a deadly vacuum bomb launchers
• Vladimir Putin’s war effort once again damaged as Zelensky’s troops prevailed 
• Anti-tank missiles from a Stugna-P ATGM destroyed the Russian TOS-1 launcher
• TOS-1 Buratino and TOS-1A Solntsepeks are banned by the Geneva Conventions

Ukrainian fighters were overjoyed after they blew up one of Russia’s deadly vacuum bomb launchers in an enormous explosion.

Vladimir Putin’s war effort was once again damaged as Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops destroyed another piece of Moscow’s military equipment.

The Ukrainian 80th Air Assault Brigade hit a TZM-T (TOS-1 reloading vehicle) with a Stugna-P ATGM, a Ukrainian anti-tank guided missile.

Footage shows missiles being fired at a Russian TOS-1 launcher on the side of a hill before the thermobaric missile launcher explodes with a massive ball of fire and thick smoke. 

Thermobaric missiles are defined by their type of explosion, which sucks in surrounding air to prompt a high-temperature explosion, often called vacuum bombs. 

Ukrainian fighters were overjoyed after they blew up one of Russia’s deadly vacuum bomb launchers in an enormous explosion

Footage shows missiles being fired at a Russian TOS-1 launcher on the side of a hill before the thermobaric missile launcher explodes with a massive ball of fire and thick smoke

Aside from nuclear weapons, Russia’s TOS-1 Buratino and TOS-1A Solntsepek rockets are some of the most lethal missiles.

The missiles are banned under the Geneva Conventions.

The Buratino is only used by Putin’s forces and is supposed to detstroy heavily-protected military positions.

It works by initiating a small explosion that releases a chemical gas cloud that uses up oxygen in a given space.

The Russian rocket launcher was hidden behind an outcrop of bushes in a position on the side of a hill

Ukrainian fighters spotted the launcher and fired a series of missiles at the deadly piece of machinery

They destroyed yet another piece of Vladimir Putin’s war kit with a massive explosion

A thick plume of smoke was seen coming from the decimated launcher after the successful strike

The Ukrainian 80th Air Assault Brigade hit a TZM-T (TOS-1 reloading vehicle) with a Stugna-P ATGM

A second explosive ignited the gas, creating a huge explosion that then sucks in surrounding air. 

It came as video emerged of a Russian airstrike obliterating a Ukrainian ‘Palace of Culture’ arts centre with a missile thought to have been launched from a strategic bomber as Vladimir Putin launches a major new offensive in the east of the country.

The strike on Friday in the Lozova region of Kharkiv is believed to be a Kh-22 missile launched by a Russian Tu-22M3 bomber, according to defence expert Rob Lee.  

Putin has launched a major new offensive in the east of Ukraine as he hopes to build on his ‘victory’ in the strategic port city of Mariupol, while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky urges for a diplomatic end to the invasion. 

The last remaining Ukrainian-held territories in the Donbas region have become central to Putin’s war plans as he looks to take full control of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. 

It means Russian and Ukrainian forces are set for a re-match of one of the biggest battles of the conflict so far, as Putin’s troops prepare another attempt to cross the Siverskiy Donets river, which connects the crucial cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, both in Luhansk. 

The last remaining Ukrainian-held territories in the Donbas region have become central to Putin’s war plans as he looks to take full control of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.

They are part of a Ukrainian-held pocket that Russia has been trying to overrun since mid-April after failing to capture the capital of Kyiv. 

It comes as Ukrainian president Zelensky said today that the war can only be resolved through ‘diplomacy’, amid a deadlock in negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.

‘The end will be through diplomacy,’ the comedian turned war time leader said, speaking to a Ukrainian television channel. 

He added that the war ‘will be bloody, there will be fighting, but it will only definitively end through diplomacy’.

Recent weeks have seen Russia forced out from the outskirts of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in what was their fastest retreat since being pushed out of the north and Kyiv region at the end of March.

However they have re-taken some of their lost ground in Kharkiv and still control a large swathe of the south and east, while the end of the fighting in Mariupol means that that territory is now largely unbroken.

Video shows the Palace of Culture arts centre in the Lozova region of Kharkiv being obliterated by an airstrike 

Footage shared on Telegram appears to show the moment a Russian Iskander-M strikes a Ukrainian position near Petrovskoye, in Kharkiv, while in village of Vilkhivka, also in Kharkiv, and in nearby Bakhmut, images from Friday show levelled houses and traumatised residents as they returned to take stock of the damage. 

Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, said in a social media post early on Saturday that Russia was trying to destroy Sievierodonetsk, with fighting taking place on the outskirts of the city.

‘Shelling continues from morning to the evening and also throughout the night,’ Gaidai said in a video post on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s Defence Ministry tweeted a video showing the Palace of Culture being blown up in Lozova, Kharkiv (Pictured: Tweet which shows the centre in the moments before it was destroyed)

The aftermath of a Russian airstrike on a ‘Palace of Culture’ in the southeastern Kharkiv region 

Ukrainian servicemen leaving the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Friday, after surrendering to Russian forces 

The Chief spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said on 20 May that the Azofstal steel plant is now under full Russian army control. (Pictured: Ukrainian servicemen leaving the plant on Friday to be taken to Russian-held territory)

A Russian soldier patrols the streets of Kherson with a large Russian truck, emblazoned with the country’s military’s ‘Z’ insignia, seen nearby

A Ukrainian man stands by his destroyed home on Friday following Russian shelling in Bakhmut, Ukraine

A woman takes stock of the damage to her home on Friday following shelling by Putin’s forces in Bakhmut, Ukraine

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