Video: Ukrainians Use Tractors to Steal Russian Tanks and Artillery Again – Another video has been making the rounds on YouTube showing the brazen “theft” of a Russian tank or what could be a smashed artillery piece in Ukraine.
Nearly a year after the first clips circulated on social media highlighting how Ukrainian farmers used their tractors to tow away tanks, armored personnel carriers (APCs), and other vehicles, once again tractors are being used to seize Russian assets.
What We Know
Though a mere 10 seconds in length, a pair of tractors can be seen towing away a seriously damaged Russian tank or what could be a Russian artillery piece.
It is unclear when or where the incident occurred and no commentary has been provided.
This footage hasn’t been independently verified.
However, it remains an undisputed fact that Ukrainian farmers did use their tractors in the early stages of Russia’s unprovoked invasion to steal a number of vehicles.
The incidents, which first occurred just over a year ago, went viral across social media.
One in particular purported to show a farmer towing away a Russian MB-TB, a Soviet-era multipurpose amphibious auxiliary armored tracked vehicle that was seemingly abandoned by its crew after it ran out of fuel.
That initial video was even seen some five million times soon after being posted.
Instead of dissuading its citizens to refrain from such seemingly dangerous activities, the government in Kyiv seemingly approved and all but encouraged such acts.
Ukraine’s National Agency for the Protection against Corruption (NAPC) even declared that captured Russian tanks and other equipment are not subject to declaration, nor will those items be taxed.
“Have you captured a Russian tank or armored personnel carrier and are worried about how to declare it? Keep calm and continue to defend the Motherland! There is no need to declare the captured Russian tanks and other equipment, because the cost of this … does not exceed 100 living wages (UAH 248,100),” NAPC’s press service said in a statement to the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
Symbol of Defiance in Ukraine
The humble tractor soon became one of the de facto symbols of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion.
Videos continued to circulate on YouTube while photos and memes had gone viral across various social media platforms, including Twitter, Telegram, and TikTok.
In June, the iconic image of Ukraine’s resistance was even commemorated with a postage stamp that showed a tractor towing away a disabled Russian tank.
It was the result of a contest conducted by Ukrposhta, the country’s national postal carrier.
Anastasia Bondarets won this second stamp-design contest – following a prior challenge, which depicted the defiant response by the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island in the early days of the invasion.
In addition, a cottage industry also sprung up, producing posters and T-shirts featuring the images, which served to mock the Russian Army and, of course, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin.
This also spurred a number of fake videos that also circulated on social media, showing everything from a Soyuz rocket to the Russian Navy’s cursed aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov being towed away. Russia may be a master of disinformation campaigns on social media, but they certainly lost that one – while the Russian troops gave Ukraine a true propaganda victory.
It now appears too that the Russians will continue to keep providing more opportunities for its tanks to be stolen – and more propaganda for Kyiv.
Video: Ukrainian tractor drivers squeezed a ‘tank’ from the Russians
