The Russian Ministry of Defence has shared this footage that they say shows special forces soldiers taking part in the war in Ukraine, which they are still calling a “special operation”.

A first piece of footage shows soldiers riding in an attack helicopter. It is different to the usual footage shared by the Kremlin in that all of the soldiers’ faces have been blurred.

The soldiers can be seen carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and the attack helicopter is equipped with heavy weaponry.

The helicopter can be seen flying at high speed and close to the ground over what the Russians say is the Ukrainian countryside. On the ground, military vehicles that appear to belong to the Russian army can be seen occupying a village.

The footage then shows the helicopter landing and soldiers being deployed on the ground in attack formation. The footage then shows another soldier pointing a heavy machine gun outside of the helicopter as it continues to fly, presumably heading to another destination.

The footage then cuts to what appears to be a night-time shot of the helicopter approaching a city or other built-up urban area before the footage suddenly ends.

It is currently unclear where exactly the footage was filmed but it appears that the Kremlin has designed it to stoke up morale within its own troops and to instil fear in its enemies. Numerous reports around the world are stating that the war is not going the way the Russian dictator had planned it.

In another departure from its regular modus operandi, the Russian Ministry of Defence, sharing the footage on YouTube, avoided providing extensive details about the operation. They simply captioned it: “The work of special forces units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during the special operation.”

A second Russian MoD video that they posted online today (Wednesday, 2nd March) also appears to show numerous Russian attack helicopters escorting an advance of ground units as the Russian dictator’s invasion of his peaceful neighbour continues.

The footage has emerged amid reports that Ukraine has again reiterated its request to NATO to close the skies over Ukraine, stressing that children are being killed by Russian violence.

The Russian MoD captioned the second piece of footage: “Helicopter escort of army aviation units of the RF Armed Forces during a special military operation.”

In the footage, military trucks can be seen on the ground advancing on countryside roads and passing through hamlets while the heavily armed attack gunships appear to escort them.

Snow can be seen covering the Ukrainian countryside as Russian soldiers point their guns out of the attack helicopters. Destroyed vehicles are occasionally seen in the footage, indicative of the tragedy unfolding in Europe.

In the buildup to the invasion of its peaceful neighbour, the Kremlin had shared numerous pieces of footage showing “military exercises”, with long descriptions. But this is not the case here as the information pertaining to the Russian soldiers’ mission is no doubt too sensitive to share publicly.

Western intelligence experts and Ukrainians will be interested in analysing the footage in a bid to determine where it was filmed, which can most likely be determined by looking at the countryside that is filmed from the helicopter.

The footage was picked up by a number of Russian media outlets. The Russian news site Gazeta.ru also failed to describe in any detail what the footage was showing, other than to say that it showed Russian “special forces troops in Ukraine”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been widely condemned around the world, with US President Joe Biden becoming the latest world leader to label the Russian despot “a dictator”. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov have also used the term.

Yesterday (1st March), the European Union announced that it is accepting Ukraine’s candidacy to join the EU. The announcement was met with waves of applause in the European Parliament.

The move comes after Russia invaded Ukraine last Thursday (24th of February), sparking outrage the world over and unprecedented sanctions designed to cripple the Russian economy and impede its war machine.

The Russian government still refuses to call the war in Ukraine “a war”, insisting that it is a “special operation”. But some brave Russians are speaking out, risking arrest to protest a war they do not want. Among them is the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, run by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, 60, who recently said that they would “continue to call war war”.

This is despite threats from the state media watchdog Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media).