Ukraine has made public a rare and striking piece of combat footage that reveals its elite special operations forces carrying out a daring assault launched directly from a U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopter. The raid took place in the embattled front-line city of Pokrovsk, a location that has become one of the focal points of the war’s most ferocious and sustained clashes. According to the newly released visuals, the Ukrainian operation unfolded amid heavy fighting that continues to shape the strategic balance in the region.
This video material provides an exceptionally rare window into Ukraine’s ongoing struggle to safeguard Pokrovsk, a city deemed critical for its geographic and logistical importance. It underscores the intensity of efforts by Kyiv’s military to maintain control over the area and resist the Russian advance that has been steadily consuming territory. The deployment of these highly trained special forces suggests that Ukraine is intensifying its counteroffensive measures and engaging in increasingly complex, high-risk missions in an effort to blunt Moscow’s momentum on the front lines.
The combat footage was released by Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, known as the HUR, and highlights the actions of its elite “Timur” unit operating in Pokrovsk. The city lies deep within the heavily contested Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine — a landscape scarred by extensive bombardment and prolonged urban warfare. In one of the most gripping moments captured in the film, a sleek Black Hawk helicopter is seen traversing open fields before hovering just long enough for special operations troops to disembark rapidly. The soldiers, identifiable by their tactical gear and precision movements, surge toward the city’s perimeter before the aircraft rises again and maneuvers away. Subsequent frames depict the chaos of battle: billows of smoke from airstrikes, the hum of drone activity above the city, and flashes of distant explosions that underscore the perilous nature of the operation. The HUR did not specify when this mission occurred, maintaining the secrecy typical of elite operations.
Ukraine’s fleet of UH-60 Black Hawks — products of the American defense manufacturer Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin — remains largely classified in terms of both quantity and deployment details. Accordingly, the appearance of such aircraft in official footage represents a rare and symbolic revelation of Ukraine’s evolving military capabilities and the high value placed on helicopter-borne special operations.
In an accompanying statement, the HUR described the assault as “successful,” noting that units from the Timur group reinforced other Ukrainian troops who had previously broken through an established ground corridor. The agency refrained from disclosing which additional special forces units were deployed in the Pokrovsk area but confirmed that combat there remains fierce and unrelenting.
For more than a year, Russian forces have endeavored to capture Pokrovsk, a city that serves as a crucial logistical artery for Ukrainian defense operations in Donetsk. Control over this hub would enable Moscow to reorganize supply lines and launch deeper incursions into Ukrainian-held territory. Despite enduring relentless pressure and continuous bombardment, Ukraine has managed to hold the city’s core, though analysis from the Institute for the Study of War — a U.S.-based think tank — indicates that Russian troops have gained positions along the city’s outer edges. The same institution reported growing evidence that Russian units have managed to penetrate portions of Pokrovsk from the northwest, suggesting the situation on the ground is increasingly precarious. In contrast, the Russian Ministry of Defense has claimed that Ukrainian defenders stationed there have been encircled, assertions that Kyiv continues to deny.
During recent remarks, Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, characterized Pokrovsk as the most challenging and volatile section of the entire front line. He explained that Ukrainian soldiers stationed in the city are currently resisting an overwhelming number of Russian troops attempting to infiltrate the urban center and sever key supply routes that sustain local defense. While rejecting Moscow’s claims of a total blockade, Syrskyi emphasized that Ukraine is taking exhaustive measures to maintain the flow of logistics into Pokrovsk, declaring that every available effort is being directed toward holding the city’s defenses.
Syrskyi further elaborated that a broad and coordinated operation is underway to repel Russian advances. He confirmed that the HUR, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and other specialized formations have been ordered to deploy in the Pokrovsk area — operations that, according to him, have inflicted significant losses on the aggressor, forcing Russia to pay what he described as “the highest price” for its continued offensive.
The SBU, Ukraine’s main domestic security service, issued its own statement asserting that its elite “Alpha” special forces unit has, over the past month alone, eliminated more than 1,500 Russian soldiers and destroyed a substantial number of tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and air defense systems. The agency noted that while Alpha forces have long been operating near Pokrovsk, their presence has been reinforced as combat intensity increased. According to the SBU, these units are tasked with executing missions of extreme difficulty in the most dangerous sectors of the battlefield — striking enemy positions with surgical precision and neutralizing entire squads through coordinated action.
Pokrovsk thus joins the tragic lineage of urban battlegrounds that have come to symbolize the brutality of the Russia–Ukraine war, sharing a grim resemblance to earlier confrontations in Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Both those cities ultimately fell under Russian occupation, leaving behind little more than devastated ruins — a cautionary image of what Ukraine’s forces are striving desperately to prevent from recurring in Pokrovsk.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/video-special-forces-black-hawk-raid-pokrovsk-ukraine-fierce-fight-2025-11
