WATCH Russian retaliation for shelling of frontline Donbass city

A video purports to show a hit on Ukrainian forces responsible for attacks on Gorlovka

Russian artillery has detected and hit Ukrainian artillery positions near Gorlovka, according to Russian reporter Andrey Rudenko, who has shared a video of the counterbattery strike.

Gorlovka is a city in Donetsk People’s Republic and comes under regular Ukrainian drone and artillery attacks, according to regional head Denis Pushilin.

Rudenko said the drone footage he published on social media on Tuesday showed a barrage delivered by the 132nd brigade of the 1st Army Corps on the positions of Ukrainian forces responsible for recent shelling of Gorlovka.

In the video, a single plume of smoke can be seen rising from a small forest. Then multiple explosions go off in the vicinity, sending shockwaves through the air. The journalist did not disclose any further details about the strike.

The 132nd used to be part of the DPR’s militia forces and was named after Gorlovka. It joined the Russian armed forces after Moscow accepted the breakaway Ukrainian region under Russian sovereignty in late 2022, following a referendum on the issue held by its residents.

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Hostilities initially started after a US-backed armed coup in Kiev in 2014, which was rejected by Ukrainian citizens in the east. The new authorities sent in the military in a failed attempt to quash the rebellion, and later stonewalled attempts to reintegrate Donetsk and the fellow breakaway region of Lugansk as autonomous parts of Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces have suffered a string of setbacks on the frontline this year. Earlier this month, the Defense Ministry reported the full liberation of Staromayorskoye, a frontline village in DPR that Kiev captured during its so-called counteroffensive in 2023.