The Russian Defense Ministry has published footage of night-time strikes by Russia's artillerymen targeting Ukrainian fortified positions and preventing enemy forces near Artemovsk (Bakhmut) in the Donetsk People's Republic from rotating their units in peace.
The footage shows operators of 152 mm D-20 howitzers backed by Grad multiple launch rocket system artillery in action, along with aerial camera footage of a target area, whose pockmarked surface looks less like Earth and more like a desolate lunar landscape.
Artillery has played a central role in the Ukrainian conflict, which in many areas has resembled less the large, sweeping offensives of the Second World War, and more the static trench warfare of the First World War.