Ukraine celebrates its armored tractors

Happily towed as if parked illegally, the Soviet-era armored personnel carrier doesn’t look so intimidating as it is paraded in front of the ecstatic Ukrainians who have gathered to celebrate its confiscation.

In theory, the 1970s MT-LB belongs to the Russian Armed Forces, but they abandoned it in north-eastern Ukraine, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the warring neighbors’ common border.

It was found by tractor driver Vitaliy Denysenko, who with a mischievous wink drags his loot across a field in the village of Mala Rogan, where it was abandoned during a hasty retreat at the end of March.

“It took us two tractors to pull it out, which we could after the military mined the field,” the 44-year-old told a group of reporters who had gathered to cover the spectacle.

Footage of Russian tanks and other military vehicles being towed by brave Ukrainian tractors has been a regular feature on social media since Moscow’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, and quickly became a defining image of the country’s resistance.

Denysenko followed the example of farmers across the country by donating his quarry to the military.

“We couldn’t use it for ourselves. What could we do with it? Take it to the village disco?” he said.

Ukrainian peasants have seized so many Russian vehicles in areas occupied and then abandoned by Moscow’s retreating forces that jokes on the internet have begun calling them “Europe’s fifth largest army”.

Now her chutzpah is being celebrated by the country’s national post office, which had representatives in Mala Rogan on Thursday to release a new stamp depicting one of the infamous raids.

Tetyana Fomenko, head of the Kharkiv regional postal service’s stamp collection shop, said it was the fourth military stamp issued during the war, with five million set to go on sale.

It’s unclear which Ukrainian first towed a Russian tank, but the madness really set in when Viktor Kychuk and friends shot a Soviet tank on March 1 in Slatyne, a northeastern town of 6,000 people just 13 kilometers from Russia T-80s took over.

“We found a lot of vehicles and equipment in our village when it was liberated… This one was really stuck,” the 44-year-old told AFP, recalling shell fire raining down while conducting the daring operation.

“There was a lot of equipment thrown away, but the local team made the best of it,” he added.

“They cut all the cables, pierced all the optics and whatever was left. Four units were taken out. And four pieces of equipment were taken from the village by our boys.”

Kychuk sent a clip of himself and his friends driving away in the tank to regional military chief Volodymyr Usov, who uploaded it to YouTube, where it quickly went viral and racked up 350,000 views.

The Ukrposhta postal service has become a symbol of Ukrainian defiance after it issued a stamp in April depicting a soldier giving the middle finger to the Russian flagship Moskva on the Black Sea.

The warship was sunk days earlier by an explosion and fire that Ukraine claimed was caused by a missile attack – while Russia said the damage was due to an explosion of munitions on board.

In Kyiv on Thursday there was a huge queue in front of the main post office, waiting to get hold of the latest postage stamp.

Those in line were told they would have to wait three hours to get their hands on the precious keepsake.

“This is how we support our people’s fight against the Russian aggressor,” lifelong stamp collector Vitaliy, 60, told AFP.

“But now the war is on, we as patriots support our country. Part of the money from the sale of these stamps will go to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”