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SHOCK AND AWE
THE POWER of Ukraine’s new long range artillery is laid bare by the carnage at Kherson airport – where Russian invaders built a major headquarters.
Bricks and bits of mangled metal from the devastated terminal building were strewn hundreds of metres across the pan where passengers used to board Ryanair flights.
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Terrified Russian troops scattered anti-tank mines and dug a trench across a taxi-way in a doomed bid to protect their positions from a stunning counter attack.
Rows of wrecked aircraft and abandoned choppers overlook abandoned Russian trenches and dug-outs.
Ukraine’s heroic defenders used US and British long range rockets to pound the Russian positions on the outskirts of the prized southern city.
Major Valentine, a Ukrainian combat engineer, said hundreds of Russian troops had perished in bombardments.
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He said: “It would have been very scary here.”
He led a specialist bomb squad scouring the scene for unexploded ordnance.
Russian troops dug pits in to protect their tanks and trucks.
The wrecks of those that couldn’t hide were towed to a nearby salvage yard where a Russian howitzer artillery gun sat yards from an unspent Grad rocket and half a dozen artillery shells.
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Putin’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu ordered a humiliating withdrawal after commanders said they could no longer keep their troops supplied.
Tens of thousands of Russians retreated to the east bank of the Dnipro river last week.