Ukraine uses Turkish armed drone in Donbas for 1st time

The Ukrainian Armed Forces shared footage on social media Tuesday of its first ever combat deployment of a Turkish Bayraktar TB2 armed drone to destroy a howitzer used by pro-Russian separatists in Donbas.

The Bayraktar TB2 was used for the first time to force the separatists to abide by a cease-fire, the armed forces said in a Facebook statement.

One Ukrainian soldier was killed and two others were wounded by the howitzers, the statement said.

Russian forces entered the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014, with President Vladimir Putin formally dividing the region into two separate federal subjects of the Russian Federation the following month.

Turkey and the US as well as the UN General Assembly view the annexation as illegal.

Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in Donbas has seen more than 13,000 people killed since 2014, according to the UN.

The region is one of several sources of friction between Russia and Ukraine.