Russian forces are being pounded in the east of Ukraine.
ITV News Senior International Correspondent John Irvine and his team, Mike Field, Lutfi Abu-Aun, Martin Flynn and Andriy Glushko, were given exclusive access to a Ukrainian artillery unit on the frontline of the war, as it targets Russian forces near the Ukrainian city of Izyum.
Every ferocious bellow from the Ukrainian army howitzer was an attack on the Russians and an assault on the senses of the gun crew and those of us watching them work.
The muzzle flash, the roar, the earth shaking and the dust - all of it happened in a split second. Then, after a slick reload, the gun fired in anger once more.
We were with an artillery unit on the eastern front. These days you can’t get much closer to the war than this.
Street fights on this vast agricultural landscape are few and far between. Here the war has evolved into an artillery battle.
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