This incredible scene occurred when a group of Russian troops surrendered in Ukraine while flying a white flag from the tank’s turret.
Amazing video shot in Kherson, Ukraine’s south, shows a Russian BMP-2 pulling out from behind a group of trees, halting in front of Ukrainian soldiers, and then letting out three crew members with their hands up.
Then, in what looks to be a pre-planned operation, the Ukrainians come in, empty the men of their guns, and capture them as POWs.
Footage was made public after Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that over 2,000 Russian troops had contacted a hotline to seek how to surrender rather than take a chance on being killed in combat.
Military intelligence’s Andriy Yusov said calls had come from soldiers inside Ukraine, from those who had already been conscripted in Russia, and from some people who had not yet been ordered to be recruited but dreaded receiving the order.
Additionally, it coincides with Ukrainian counterattacks in Kherson, in the south, and around Kharkiv, in the north, which have caused significant deaths for Russia and given Kiev control over large areas of land.
More than two months have passed since Ukrainian soldiers began their assault on Kherson, but up until lately, they had made only little headway.
The Russian lines, on the other hand, abruptly disintegrated in recent days, enabling the men of Kyiv to advance more than 10 kilometres in a matter of hours.
According to President Zelensky, the operation, which intends to retake the city of Kherson itself, freed “dozens” of settlements.
Ukrainian forces have also freed thousands of square kilometers of land close to the city of Kharkiv, hundreds of miles to the north.
Now that almost the whole Kharkiv area is under their control, troops are moving into the neighboring provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
An important transit hub, the city of Lyman, was overrun over the weekend, and forces have been clearing out minor settlements along the neighboring Oskil River ever since.
With the towns of Svatove and Kreminna in their sights, Ukraine now seems prepared to go farther into the almost entirely Russian-controlled Luhansk region.
Putin is already losing land in three of the four oblasts he seized last week, declaring them to be Russian “forever,” as a result of the two-pronged offensives.
His spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, promised yesterday that all lost territory will be retaken by Russian forces, and the districts would “never be surrendered” to Ukraine.
Regarding the 300,000 troops he just enlisted in the military, Putin himself said that he expects the situation on the front lines to “stabilize.”
While some of those personnel have already been sent, the majority won’t be there for at least a few weeks, and the ground situation is anticipated to remain tumultuous for some time.
As Putin tries to cling onto the achievements his embattled army has won in more than seven months of war, he has combined nuclear threats against both Ukraine and the West with land grabs and conscription.
Experts and observers, however, are skeptical that Putin would be able to do this after unidentified US officials said yesterday that Kyiv’s forces now have a genuine chance of retaking Crimea, which is Russia’s most strongly fortified province in Ukraine.
The peninsula serves as one large Russian military installation, including two airfields, the Black Sea Fleet’s home port at Sevastopol, several smaller soldier stations, and munitions storage facilities.
According to a senior US official, however, the recovery of Crimea by Ukraine “is now a definite possibility and can no longer be disregarded” as a result of Russia’s waning military effort.
The source said, “It is obvious that Russia no longer has the capability or motivation to defend crucial sites, and if the Ukrainians are able to retake Kherson, then there is a very real prospect that it will eventually be able to regain Crimea.”