A Ukrainian brigade has claimed to have smashed one of Russia’s single-largest armoured assaults, featuring 11 tanks, 45 armoured vehicles and 12 motorcycles.

The 79th Air Assault Brigade uploaded a video on social media purporting to show artillery fire and first-person view drones smashing into the advancing column of Russian armour, while mines also help thwart the thrust.

“As a result of the battle, our paratroopers knocked out six tanks and seven BBM [armoured personnel carriers] with infantry. All 12 motorbikes were burnt,” the brigade wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“The Russians suffered tremendous losses in manpower: 40 occupiers were killed, another 37 were wounded.”

Moscow’s forces were making a push towards the vital garrison town of Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, on what has become the most violent axis of the war in Ukraine.