Video taken by Russian drones purportedly shows 11 soldiers disembarking Black Hawk aircraft
Credit: Ukrainian military via Reuters
Memphis Barker Senior Foreign Correspondent.
Victor Sajenko Ukraine
01 November 2025
Ukrainian special forces have launched a counter-offensive in Pokrovsk with US-made Black Hawk helicopters.
The goal of the operation is to reopen supply lines to the besieged Ukrainian city, which held out for more than a year against a Russian offensive but appears to be on the brink of capture.
Video provided to The Economist showed a Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) infiltration team of 11 soldiers fanning out across a field after climbing down from a Black Hawk helicopter.
Gen Kyrylo Budanov, the Ukrainian intelligence chief, was reported to be personally leading the operation from nearby, in a sign of its potential significance.
Russian forces are close to encircling Pokrovsk, according to Deep State Map, the open-source intelligence map, with only a six-mile gap left through which to bring in supplies and evacuate the wounded.
On Saturday morning, there were fears for the fate of the GUR team when footage taken by Russian drones purportedly showed a series of strikes in the area where the men had been dropped.
The Telegraph has not been able to verify the footage and Ukrainian military officials have yet to comment on the operation.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had “repelled an attempted landing by Ukraine’s special forces” and “eliminated” 11 soldiers who had landed by helicopter.
Ukrainian defence sources told RBC-Ukraine, a news website, that this was “propaganda” and the operation was ongoing.
According to the latest update from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, Ukrainian forces made slight advances in the city of Rodynske, a small city to the north of Pokrovsk.
In the first official comment on the counter-offensive on Saturday afternoon, Gen Oleksandr Syrski, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, confirmed that he had launched a “comprehensive operation” to “destroy and displace enemy forces in Pokrovsk”.
The general said that special forces were operating “in the city”.
A ‘difficult’ situation
On Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, has admitted that the situation is “difficult” in Pokrovsk, telling journalists on Friday that as many as 170,000 Russian troops had amassed in Donetsk.
The Black Hawk raid comes after weeks of punishing Russian strikes on Ukraine’s supply lines into Pokrovsk, which have hampered Kyiv’s ability to bring food, water and ammunition to its fighters.
Hundreds of Russian infiltrators have entered the pulverised city, often disguising themselves as civilians to slip through Ukraine’s porous defensive line.
While Ukrainian military officials claim the situation is under control, there are calls to evacuate troops before a potential Russian encirclement.
It is unclear when the airborne assault began, but video footage emerged on Friday night of UH-60 Black Hawks flying into Pokrovsk only feet above the ground.
Defence sources told the local news website Suspilne that the landing took place in an area Russia considered under its control.
Open-source analysts have geolocated the position to a field close to Ukraine’s main supply road into the city, which runs out to the north-west.
Should Moscow seize Pokrovsk, formerly a logistics and rail hub, it would gain a launchpad from which to push north or west, endangering the “fortress belt” of cities holding back Vladimir Putin’s army.
It remains too early to assess the overall success or failure of the counter-offensive, with only a series of fragmentary, unverified clips available. Further Ukrainian helicopters are reported to be flying around Pokrovsk.
But video footage released on Russian Telegram channels suggests the special forces team seen landing in the field may have been killed or wounded shortly after hitting the ground.
In the first clip of a compilation recorded by first-person view drones, four soldiers can be seen highlighted in red, indicating the use of thermal cameras.
In the second, a drone zooms in on a prone Ukrainian soldier hiding under foliage. In the third, a drone chases a Ukrainian through a field.
In the fourth, a drone moves through the doorway of a small concrete building towards what appears to be a soldier. And in the fifth, a drone flies through the upper-floor window of a separate structure, revealing three prone bodies.
“The liquidation of the GUR special forces continues,” reads a red banner at the close of the footage. However, it was not clear on Saturday if the footage recorded strikes on the GUR team or separate operations.
A Ukrainian soldier currently fighting in Pokrovsk confirmed the launch of the Black Hawk special forces operation, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Inside Ukraine’s fortress belt, where Nato doctrine no longer applies
The soldier said that the operation was likely to have been launched “after they were able to build up sufficient resources, to expect some kind of result”.
The soldier was adamant that Russian forces had not closed off Ukraine’s troops inside a “cauldron”, saying that such an operation required full movement of troops over and above just “fire control” with drones.
“People are going, people are returning,” the soldier said.
The Ukrainian military has at times been accused of withdrawing its forces too late, leading to chaotic and costly retreats.
The AFU should do everything possible to cut the roach supply lines. Anything else is almost futile without enough infantry, unless I missed something or other factors are not being mentioned.
“Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had “repelled an attempted landing by Ukraine’s special forces” and “eliminated” 11 soldiers who had landed by helicopter.”
So the orcs repelled an attempted landing, but eliminated 11 Ukrainians that landed. That makes sense, for mafia land. The video I saw showed Ukrainians landing unhindered and the chopper taking off unhindered.