The first authentic images appeared on social networks showing that the Russian military destroyed the first HIMARS missile system that Ukraine received from the United States, which dealt a serious moral blow to Kyiv’s forces.

Video of the destruction of what appears to be a certain HIMARS system appeared on Russian Telegram channels on Tuesday evening and was then re-shared on Twitter by Russian military bloggers and other pro-Kremlin sources:

Forbes finds the images convincing enough to conclude that “after two years of trying, Russia has finally destroyed HIMARS.”

David Ax, one of Forbes’ military analysts, notes that the images suggest that a Russian surveillance drone may have spotted the HIMARS system and its support vehicles near the edge of a forest near Nikanorivka, a city in the Donetsk region about 40 kilometers from the front line.

Drone footage shows a missile, believed to be a land-based Iskander, falling in close proximity to the HIMARS system, with the explosion causing one of its M30/31 missiles to detonate.

Forbes notes that it is not clear from the recording whether the crew of the salvo fire system was killed in the strike, or why he was at the front in broad daylight.

But a video released by the Ukrainian armed forces on February 21 showed dozens of Russian soldiers killed in the afternoon by HIMARS launchers in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, in the Oleshkivskii Pisky Nature Reserve, where the Russian military is said to have set up a training ground.

“In any case, this is a heavy loss for the Ukrainian military – in a rare counter-battery victory for the Russian military, which has been largely unable to counter US-made HIMARS. It seems that the combination of a long-range reconnaissance drone and a high-speed Iskander battery has finally been able to destroy the Ukrainian 27th Brigade, – concludes David Ax for Forbes.

The Russian military has been trying to destroy the HIMARS system for almost two years

On June 23, 2022, the former Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov reported that the first HIMARS salvo systems promised by Washington to Kyiv had arrived in Ukraine, noting then that “the summer will be hot for the Russian occupiers.”

“Thank you to my American colleague and friend, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, for these powerful tools! The summer for the Russian occupiers will be hot. And for some of them, it is the last,” Reznikov said then, who was replaced by Rustem Umerov in the meantime.

Reznikov’s words would prove to be prophetic as the Ukrainian military launched numerous bloody strikes against the Russians from these US-provided salvo systems.

One of the favorite targets of the HIMARS systems was the Antoniv bridge across the Dnipro, which provided supplies to Russian troops on the west bank of the river in the Kherson region. The Ukrainian military has repeatedly hit this important hub for the invasion forces sent by Vladimir Putin to Ukraine, disabling it several times.

Finally, on November 9, 2022, the Russian army decided to leave the western bank of the Dnieper, and with it the administrative headquarters of the Kherson region, blowing up the bridge during the retreat.

The news is updated.

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