The 5 Biggest HIMARS Strikes in Ukraine Caught on Camera
The arrival of the American-supplied M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) fundamentally transformed the battlefield in Ukraine. Combining high-speed mobility with GPS-guided Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) munitions, the platform gave Ukrainian forces the capability to strike deep into Russian-occupied territory with pinpoint accuracy. By targeting command posts, logistics nodes, and troop concentrations, HIMARS systematically disrupted Russian offensive operations and forced Moscow to radically alter its rear-area security doctrines.
What sets these strikes apart in modern military history is the extraordinary visual documentation that accompanied them. High-resolution Ukrainian reconnaissance drones hovering miles away, civilian smartphones, and even soldiers’ personal video recordings have captured the precise moment these high-explosive and fragmentation rockets found their targets. The following list highlights five of the most devastating HIMARS strikes in Ukraine that were caught on camera, organized by the prominent military and civilian actors involved.
36th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Trudivske Parade Ground Strike)
💥 Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed a Russian military base with 3 HIMARS strikes in Trudivske, occupied Donetsk region. The strikes occurred at around 9:00am Feb 20 right as around 65 soldiers assumed morning formation. 39th Detached Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade – Unit 39350. https://t.co/h05ifahOkm
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) February 20, 2024
On the morning of February 20, 2024, commanders of Russia’s 36th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade—a unit permanently stationed in Borzya, Zabaykalsky Krai—assembled roughly three full companies of servicemen in an open field near the village of Trudivske in the Volnovakha district of Donetsk Oblast. The soldiers from the 4th, 5th, and 6th companies were ordered to stand in tight parade formations while awaiting the arrival of Major General Oleg Moiseyev, commander of the 29th Combined Arms Army, who was scheduled to deliver an inspection address. Unknown to the Russian leadership, a Ukrainian surveillance drone was already hovering overhead, transmitting real-time targeting coordinates to a waiting HIMARS battery.
Before the commander ever arrived, Ukrainian artillery fired two GMLRS rockets—believed to be M30A1 variants packed with approximately 182,000 pre-formed tungsten spheres—directly into the massed ranks. Aerial drone footage documented the mid-air detonations and the violent spread of the shrapnel patterns across the field, followed shortly by harrowing ground-level footage filmed by surviving Russian soldiers. The videos confirmed severe carnage, with at least 65 Russian soldiers killed on the spot, turning the inspection into one of the deadliest military assembly blunders caught on film during the war.
Polina Menshikh and the 810th Separate Naval Infantry Brigade (Kumachove Concert Strike)
A video reportedly capturing the moment when Ukrainian strikes struck the building of the House of Culture in Kumachove, Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine, where Russian servicemen were celebrating the Day of Missile Forces and Artillery on November 19. Among the killed was the performing Russian actress, Polina Menshikh.
— Status-6 (@Archer83Able) November 21, 2023
On November 19, 2023, Russian forces organized an awards ceremony and celebratory concert for Russia’s Missile Troops and Artillery Day in the village of Kumachove, located in Donetsk Oblast approximately 60 kilometers behind the front line. Personnel from the Sevastopol-based 810th Separate Guards Naval Infantry Brigade were gathered inside a local community center and dance hall. To entertain the troops, 40-year-old Russian actress, choreographer, and folk singer Polina Menshikh traveled from Saint Petersburg to perform live on stage with her acoustic guitar.
As Menshikh was in the middle of singing a song, a Ukrainian HIMARS rocket struck the venue directly through the roof. The exact moment of the strike was captured on video by an audience member recording the concert on a smartphone. The viral footage shows Menshikh performing before a tremendous explosion rocks the hall, blowing out the stage lighting, shattering the structure, and collapsing the ceiling onto the audience. Menshikh and an estimated 25 Russian servicemen were killed in the strike, which Ukrainian commanders explicitly characterized as retribution for an earlier Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade.
20th Combined Arms Army (Kreminna Staging Ground Barrage)
In mid-June 2023, large elements of the Russian 20th Combined Arms Army—including regiments from the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division—were gathered in a forested staging ground near Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast. In an effort to boost morale ahead of an anticipated offensive push, senior leadership ordered hundreds of soldiers and transport vehicles to gather in a clearing and stand in formation for an inspection speech by army commander Major General Sukhrab Akhmedov. The assembled soldiers reportedly stood in open ranks for over two hours awaiting the commander’s late arrival.
Ukrainian long-range aerial reconnaissance detected the static cluster of troops and rapidly relayed the grid coordinates to Ukrainian artillery forces. The resulting HIMARS strike hit the staging area with extreme devastation, an event captured from above by Ukrainian drones that recorded the rockets bursting across the forest clearing and setting off ammunition cook-offs. While the Ukrainian military claimed significant enemy casualties, the strike was further corroborated by prominent Russian pro-war military bloggers who published scathing posts about the commander’s negligence, citing approximately 100 dead and 100 wounded servicemen.
Russian Group of Forces “Dnepr” (Dzharylhach Island Beach Encampment)
In late July and early August 2023, Russian military command established a network of training and staging camps on Dzharylhach Island, a pristine 26-mile-long sandbar national park situated off the coast of Skadovsk in Kherson Oblast. Located more than 60 kilometers from the active contact line across the Black Sea, Russian commanders believed the isolated sandspit was out of reach of conventional Ukrainian artillery and safe from ground observation. Troops belonging to reserve units under the “Dnepr” operational group were housed in five distinct encampments scattered among the dunes and treelines.
Assisted by intelligence provided by local resistance movements, Ukraine deployed high-altitude reconnaissance drones to survey the island. The drone camera captured detailed footage of Russian soldiers walking openly along the shore, doing calisthenics, and standing in assembly rows completely exposed. Minutes later, the camera recorded five HIMARS rockets raining down simultaneously on each of the five encampment sites. The video, released publicly by Ukraine’s National Resistance Center, showed massive shockwaves ripping through the camps and tree clusters, resulting in an estimated 200 casualties and the destruction of the island’s military infrastructure.
328th Airborne Assault Regiment (Podo-Kalynivka Sand Dunes Strike)
On February 21, 2024—scarcely 24 hours after the deadly parade strike in Trudivske—Russian field commanders made an identical operational error on the southern front. Near the village of Podo-Kalynivka in occupied Kherson Oblast, situated on the fringes of the Oleshky Sands national reserve roughly 27 kilometers from Ukrainian riverfront positions, units were massed on the bare dunes. Troops primarily drawn from the 328th Airborne Assault Regiment (104th Guards Airborne Division) alongside attached naval infantry were brought together in broad daylight for an open-air training exercise simulating assaults against Ukrainian riverhead crossings.
Ukrainian operators flying a high-end “Shark” reconnaissance drone spotted the clustered infantry and tracked their movements across the sand. Over the course of several minutes, the drone’s high-definition camera recorded three successive HIMARS GMLRS strikes with M30A1 airburst fragmentation warheads detonating right over the troops. The footage showed the first detonation spraying thousands of tungsten pellets across a cluster of roughly a dozen soldiers, followed by a second strike hitting an adjacent group, and a third missile targeting responding officers and recovery teams. The strike resulted in at least 60 casualties, providing undisputed video evidence of Ukraine’s ability to punish repeated command failures in open terrain.
