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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Alahna Kindred

Ukrainian tracks Russian troops' movements via his looted Apple AirPods

A Ukrainian man has been following where Vladimir Putin's forces are by tracking the Apple AirPods they stole home his home.

Vitaliy Semenets’ Bluetooth headphones were looted from his home in Hostomel, near Kyiv, not long after Russian troops tried to seize the Ukrainian capital.

He has since been using Find My app for Apple products to track where his missing items are, to follow Putin's forces.

Semenets has been following the troops on their 550-mile retreat across Ukraine on online maps.

He watched online as they were taken across the border into Belarus and ended up near Gomel.

Ukrainian servicemen are seen on the frontline in Donbas (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Mr Semenets has been sharing updates about his AirPods journey on his Instagram account.

Apple’s Find My app can trace missing devices via Bluetooth or if they connect to the internet.

On his Instagram, Mr Semenets wrote: "Thanks to technology, I know where my AirPods are now. They were looted by Russian orcs from my home in Hostomel."

Last week the Airpods reached Belgorod, a city in Russia where Putin is assembling troops for an assault on the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.

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It comes as the 'battle for Donbas' has begun as Russian forces launch an all-out onslaught of eastern Ukraine.

Putin's war machine has commenced its bombardment of the east with chilling footage posted on social media showing the night sky lit up amid the relentless fresh shelling of cities.

Kremlin forces launched their long-anticipated offensive through the east of Ukraine in what is being seen as the second phase of the conflict, beginning from Monday night.

Two Ukrainian soldiers seen standing in front of the debris caused by Russian shelling in Kharkiv (Alex Chan Tsz Yuk/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock)

Footage on social media appears to show repeated heavy shelling centred in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk while Ukrainian media reported some powerful explosions in the cities of Marinka, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.

Ukrainian officials and media also said explosions were heard in Kharkiv in the northeast of Ukraine, Mykolaiv in the south and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast.

Air raid sirens were also going off in main centres near the front line.

A man walks near a residential building destroyed in the southern port city of Mariupol (REUTERS)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had begun the "Battle of Donbas" and that a "very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive".

"No matter how many Russian troops they send there, we will fight. We will defend ourselves," he said in a video address.

Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, assured Ukrainians their forces could hold off the offensive in "the second phase of the war".

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