This is the moment a Ukrainian nursery teacher took out a Russian cruise missile from a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher with her first shot.
Nataliia Hrabarchuk, a teacher-turned-soldier, was captured in stunning footage obliterating the Kh-101 long-range missile on Sunday morning.
Hrabarchuk, donning a helmet and safety vest, was seen with the large Igla MANPADS rocket-launcher balancing on her shoulder before she fired into the distance.
She then dropped to her knees in disbelief as she successfully targeted the Russian missile on her first attempt during her first combat launch.
The sound of an explosion can be heard in the distance as Hrabarchuk remains on her knees with her hands over her mouth, with the man-portable air defence system on the ground beside her.
Nataliia Hrabarchuk, who was a nursery teacher before the war, was filmed blasting a Russian missile out of the sky with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher on her first attempt
Footage of the moment saw the woman balancing the Igla MANPADS rocket-launcher on her shoulder before she fired
The rocket could be seen blasting off into the distance as Hrabarchuk set her targets on the Russian cruise missile
An explosion can be heard in the background of the footage as Hrabarchuk’s rocket destroyed the Russian missile
The former nursery school teacher dropped to her knees in disbelief when she hit the Russian missile with her first shot
‘When the enemy missile was in front of me, I threw away all emotions and excitement,’ Hrabarchuk, a volunteer member of Ukraine‘s air defence command, said.
‘I had made hundreds of training launches on simulators. And here – the first combat and on target,’ she added.
The impressive launch took place on Sunday morning during Russia’s latest large-scale attack, the Ukraine air force said.
Vladimir Putin’s troops had pounded Ukraine’s power grid in a devastating attack with 120 missiles and 90 drones.
Various types of drones were deployed, including Iranian-made Shaheds, as well as cruise, ballistic and aircraft-launched ballistic missiles.
Air defences were deployed overnight to intercept drones in Kyiv as residents were urged to take cover, while missiles bound for the west of the stricken country prompted NATO to send out its warplanes to assist.
‘Due to the massive attack by the Russian Federation using cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles on objects located, among others, in western Ukraine, Polish and allied [NATO] aircraft have begun operating in our airspace,’ said a statement from the Polish operational command at the time.
Russia’s relentless aerial bombardment with missiles and drones has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy production capacity, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Ukrainian defences shot down 144 out of a total of 210 air targets, the war-torn country’s air force reported later on Sunday.
Two children were also among at least eight people who were killed in an attack after a Russian missile destroyed a nine-storey building.
Another 52 people were injured on Sunday night when a Russian missile hit a residential building in Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy, Ukraine’s emergency services and military said.
‘Sunday evening for the city of Sumy became hell, a tragedy that Russia brought to our land,’ Volodymyr Artyukh, the head of the Sumy military administration said in a post on the administration’s Telegram messaging channel.
Two children were among at least eight people who were killed in Ukraine after a Russian missile destroyed a nine-storey building in Sumy on November 17
Firefighters were seen battling the flames resulting from the strike at the nine-storey building in Sumy on November 17
Firefighters work at the site of residential area hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Lviv region, Ukraine November 17, 2024
The combined drone and missile attack was the most powerful in three months, according to the head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, Serhii Popko.
The country’s energy operator DTEK announced emergency power cuts at around 7am UK time on Sunday morning affecting the Kyiv, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions following overnight drone strikes.
It said shortly thereafter thermal power plants had been struck by Putin’s latest fusillade.
Both Kyiv and Moscow deny targeting civilians in their strikes on each other’s territory. But thousands have died since early 2022 in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
Also on Sunday, US President Joe Biden authorised for the first time the use of US-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine to strike inside Russia, after extensive lobbying by Ukrainian officials.
The weapons are likely to be used in response to North Korea’s decision to send thousands of troops to support Russia in the Kursk region where Ukraine mounted a military incursion over the summer.
It is the second time the US has permitted the use of Western weapons inside Russian territory within limits after permitting the use of HIMARS systems, a shorter-range weapon, to stem Russia’s advance in Kharkiv region in May.
