STUNNING footage has captured the moment a Ukrainian “dragon drone” spits out a fiery stream of thermite on a Russian-held treeline.
The video posted to X shows the Kyiv drone float along before blasting down flames, setting its target ablaze.
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Vision shows the drone leave behind a trail of fire as it flies off into the night sky.
It spews out sparks believed to contain thermite, which is made up of iron oxide and aluminium.
A fiery reaction is set off when ignited, producing scorching hot molten iron that burns at 2,500 degrees – strong enough to melt through steel.
Thermite weapons have been favoured by Ukrainian drone operators for burning up Russian vehicles like tanks.
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So-called thermite rain, according to a Forbes analysis, isn’t intended to kill Vlad’s troops but instead kick-start fires to destroy their weapons or bamboozle their positions.
The dragon drones leave a heap of little spot fires that can join up to create big blazes on enemy territory.
Flames and smoke could leave troops unable to advance as they’d hoped.
Given the fearsome sight the fire-breathing drones produce, Kyiv could also be hoping they inflict a hit on Russian morale.
Elsewhere, three children were among seven victims of a bloody Russian hypersonic missile and drone attack in Lviv in western Ukraine.
Putin’s forces launched the fresh wave of strikes just a day after 51 people were killed at a military institute in the central city of Poltava.
Among those killed were a baby and two girls aged nine and 14 and a woman working as a midwife in the city, which has previously escaped serious war damage.
Explosions were also heard over the capital Kyiv as air defences homed in on Russian missiles.
The drone and missile strike in the western town of Lviv, which saw 30 people injured, took place just 30 miles from the border with Nato member Poland.
In a video posted on Telegram that showed Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi among the debris of a destroyed building, he said more than 50 structures, from schools to homes and clinics, most of them in the heart of the city, had been damaged.
Residents in Lviv have been waking up to their town completely ravaged by Putin’s overnight strikes.
Meanwhile, Poland is intending to ramp up ammunition production as it anticipates a Russian strike on NATO territory.
A board member from the Polish Armaments Group, which is government owned, said they were aiming for “independent capacity” to produce enough ammunition to defend the country.
Maciej Idzik told Reuters: “Our ambition… is to have the ability to fill up Polish warehouses in parallel to achieving a full, independent capacity to produce ammunition in Poland, within five to eight years.”
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