A Ukrainian filmmaker and soldier has praised the United States-supplied Bradley Fighting Vehicle for having "saved our lives again" during fighting in southern Ukraine.
Kyiv's fighters came under artillery shelling from Russian troops but were protected by the Bradley vehicle, Oleg Sentsov said in a Facebook post on Monday. Three people were injured, mostly sustaining fractures, Sentsov wrote.
Bradley Fighting Vehicles have been included in U.S. military aid packages destined for Ukraine's front lines in 2023 after the U.S. government said it would send 50 of the lightly-armored tracked vehicles to Kyiv in early January.
To date, Washington has sent 186 Bradleys to Ukraine and four Bradley fire support team vehicles. Ukrainian forces have lost a confirmed figure of 35 Bradleys in the war so far, although the true tally could be higher, according to the Dutch open-source intelligence outlet, Oryx.
Sentsov was previously injured in fighting in Ukraine earlier this month, Ukrainian outlet the Kyiv Independent reported. The filmmaker sustained injuries to his face, hand and foot that "will stay with me forever," he said in his update on Monday, thanking medics in the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.
Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense via email for comment.
Zaporizhzhia, the region home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, was claimed as annexed by Russia in September 2022, but this is not internationally recognized. The southern Ukrainian region is one of the areas Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces has focused on, along with Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk.
On Sunday, the Institute for the Study of War said in its daily assessment that geolocated footage from Saturday indicated that Ukraine made "limited gains" close to the Zaporizhzhia region's border with Donetsk. Although Kyiv's fighters conducted counteroffensive operations in the west of Zaporizhzhia on Sunday, they did not make confirmed advances on that part of the front line.
On Monday morning, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said Russia had directed artillery fire at more than 15 settlements in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, including the villages of Malynivka and Charivne in Zaporizhzhia.
This comes as Ukraine claimed responsibility for an attack on the Kerch Bridge, a vital crossing that connects the Russian mainland to the annexed Crimean peninsula. Russia has controlled the territory since 2014, and Kyiv has vowed to reclaim it.
An unnamed source in Ukraine's security service told CNN that the attack was a joint effort between the SBU and Ukrainian naval forces, while the BBC cited a security service source also confirming its involvement to its Russian service, and that naval drones were used.
Moscow also said that it would not extend the Black Sea grain deal, which is set to expire on Monday. The deal was brokered to ensure Ukrainian grain could be exported to the rest of the world, diverting fears over an international shortage.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more
