Haunting drone pics show Ukrainian village razed to apocalyptic wasteland by Putin’s forces

CHILLING drone pictures show how a once lively Ukrainian village has been razed to an apocalyptic wasteland by Vladimir Putin’s troops.

Ocheretyne has been battered by relentless fighting and is now just a shadow of its former self.

The village has been a prime target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Russian soldiers have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv’s depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs.

Ukraine’s military acknowledged the Russians have gained a foothold in Ocheretyne

Before the war the village had a population of about 3,000 but now not a soul can be seen in the images as the conflict rages on.

Last week residents scrambled to flee the village.

Among them was a 98-year-old woman wearing slippers who walked almost six miles alone, supported by a cane, until she reached Ukrainian front lines.

No building in Ocheretyne has managed to escape the unrelenting bombardment and most appear to be damaged beyond repair.

Many houses have been pummelled so badly they are reduced to just piles of wood and bricks and a factory on the outskirts has also been severely damaged.

The pictures also show smoke billowing from several houses, and fires burning in at least two buildings.

Elsewhere, Russia has in recent weeks stepped up attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city, in an attempt to dismantle the regions energy infrastructure and terrorize its 1.3 million residents.

Four people were wounded and a two-story civilian building was damaged and set ablaze overnight after Russian forces struck Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, with exploding drones, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday.

The four, including a 13-year-old, were hurt by falling debris, he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian state agency RIA reported Saturday that Moscows forces struck a drone warehouse in Kharkiv that had been used by Ukrainian troops overnight.

It cited Sergei Lebedev, described as a coordinator of local pro-Moscow guerrillas but his comments could not be independently verified.

On Saturday another Russian strike hit a civilian business in an industrial district of Kharkhiv, Syniehubov said.

Initial reports indicated that four people were wounded.

In the Black Sea port of Odesa, which has been repeatedly targeted in recent days, three people were hurt in a rocket attack on civil infrastructure, regional governor Oleh Kiper said.

Ukraines military said Russia launched a total of 13 Shahed drones at the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of eastern Ukraine overnight, all of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.

Ukraines energy ministry on Saturday said the overnight strikes damaged an electrical substation in the Dnipropetrovsk region, briefly depriving households and businesses of power.

According to Serhii Lysak, the province’s governor, falling drone debris damaged unspecified critical infrastructure and three private houses, one of which caught on fire.

Two residents, a man and a woman, were rushed to hospital.

Russias Defense Ministry claimed early on Saturday that its forces overnight shot down four U.S.-provided long-range ATACMS missiles over the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The ministry did not provide further details.

Ukraine has recently begun using the missiles, provided secretly by the United States, to hit Russian-held areas, including a military airfield in Crimea and in another area east of the occupied city of Berdyansk, U.S. officials said last week.

Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give Ukraine nearly double the striking distance of up to 190 miles further than it had with the mid-range version of the weapons it received from the U.S. last October.

A Ukrainian drone also damaged telecommunications infrastructure on the outskirts of Belgorod, a Russian city some 31 miles from the Ukrainian border, according to the local governor.

Vyacheslav Gladkov did not say what the site was used for.

Hours later, Gladkov reported that five people in Belgorod were hospitalized, with shrapnel wounds and other injuries, following a strong blast on Saturday that also damaged around 30 private homes and sparked two fires.

He did not immediately clarify what caused the explosions.

It comes as Ukraine blitzed another major Russian oil refinery in a kamikaze drone strike, the explosions sparking a huge inferno near Moscow.

Dramatic video from the scene showed flames raging from the Rosneft energy giant facility in the city of Ryazan on Wednesday.

Residents of Ryazan, located 125 miles southeast of Moscow, were said to have heard the rumble of drones about 3am.

Two explosions followed the sound, triggering the inferno.