INTERNATIONAL: A shower of white, brightly-burning munitions cascaded down on the Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in a video released by a pro-Russian separatist commander on Sunday 15th May, 2022.

The video shows projectiles bursting into showers of burning matter which then explode on contact with the ground or buildings.

Reuters was able to verify the location of the aerial footage to the Azovstal steel plant. The buildings seen in the video matched satellite imagery.

Reuters was not able to confirm the time and date this video was taken.

The video was posted on the Telegram messaging application by Alexander Khodakovsky, a commander of the pro-Russian self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk.

"If you didn't know what it is and for what purpose - you could say that it's even beautiful," Khodakovsky said in a message beside the video.

Khodakovsky could not be immediately reached for comment.

Reuters was not able to immediately identify the type of munitions used in the video.

The Ukrainian military said there was no let-up on Sunday in Russia's bombardment of the steel works in the southern port, where a few hundred Ukrainian fighters are holding out weeks after the city fell into Russian hands.

While Ukrainian National Guard and volunteers that seized the village of Ruska Lozova in fierce fighting on May 8, four days into a counteroffensive that has thwarted Russia’s bid to seize nearby Kharkiv, say Russian troops are withdrawing across border.

"We are pushing the Russians away and they go back to Russia. In the north and in the Kharkiv region... Thanks be to God they leave, they head towards Russia," Oleksandr Yuvchenko, one of the soldiers said.

"They left really quickly, they did not even had time to loot much. A lot of positions were abandoned, flak jackets and helmets laying around, " another soldier, Oleksandr Vilchinskiy said.