The Russian Ministry of Defence has released this footage, which it says shows a precision strike targeting a military installation in northern Ukraine, near the border with Poland, stating that “foreign instructors and mercenaries” were “destroyed”.

Newsflash obtained the footage from the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD), with the Kremlin providing a statement in which it appears eager to stress that it is targeting military forces with precision strikes amid reports of mounting civilian casualties after Russia invaded the country on Thursday, 24th February.

The footage, according to the Russian MoD, shows “monitoring of the strike with precision weapons at the training centre of the 132nd Reconnaissance Battalion of the Air Assault troops of Ukraine in the Zhytomyr region”, which is located in northern Ukraine and borders NATO member Poland.

The Kremlin, which has been widely accused of disseminating inaccurate information and propaganda, added: “As a result of an accurate missile strike, the personnel of the battalion, foreign instructors and mercenaries were destroyed. The military infrastructure and military equipment of the centre were also disabled.”

The tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, which is headquartered in the Russian capital Moscow, has also stated that the footage shows a missile strike that “destroyed” all the personnel at the military training centre, including “foreign mercenaries and instructors”.

The low-resolution footage appears to show a military vehicle and a base from the sky, with a crosshair in the middle of the screen. The footage then switches to black-and-white images, possibly infrared, and shows a large explosion.

NATO forces have been reluctant to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine despite President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s repeated requests for them to do so as civilian casualties continue to rise.

But the United States and the European Union, along with the United Kingdom and their allies, have been providing unprecedented military support as Ukraine’s military and civilians resist the Russian forces amid widespread reports that they have become bogged down.

The United Nations’ International Court of Justice has ruled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine illegal and last week it ordered President Vladimir Putin to remove his troops immediately.

Former British Prime Ministers Sir John Major and Gordon Brown have called for the creation of a Nuremberg-style international tribunal to investigate Putin.

The proposal has been co-signed by 140 intellectuals and academics, as well as Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Benjamin Ferencz, who is 102 years old and who prosecuted Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.