On April 12, 2017, Ukrainian TV station TSN ran a story featuring drone footage of Russian-backed separatist armor firing on the government-controlled village of Pisky from an elevated position within separatist-held territory. Ukraine enjoyed a period of relative calm during the beginning of 2018, but with diminishing returns from the Easter ceasefire and the winter thaw coming to the Donbas, infringements to the Minsk agreements are on the increase.

@DFRLab geolocated the footage, and mapped it against known military positions in the conflict.

(Source: Youtube / TSN)

The video showed both footage from the ground in the village precariously located on the front-line, as well as footage from the sky recorded by a drone. Footage from the ground reveals the extent of the damage that years of war have inflicted on Pisky, with many buildings destroyed to the point of inhabitability. Footage from the sky, however, captured the destruction as it was occurring.

Two primary areas of interest can be identified in the aerial footage: the village of Pisky, and the separatist tank firing onto the village from a slagheap to the southeast. This is the same area that was featured in a previous @DFRLab investigation into the use of a Ukrainain ATGM, located in between northwest Donetsk and Pisky.

From the news footage alone, it was tough to tell whether the impacts are from the tank in Russian-backed separatist territory or artillery impacts. Regardless, the magnitude of these impacts indicated that the munitions dropped were likely over the allotted size under the Minsk agreements. Twitter user @GlasnostGone was quick to identify the location from which the tank fired.