AFU Seize Rich Trophies After Russians Fled Kherson

The invaders left behind equipment, and even personal belongings.

The Russian army fled so hastily from the positions on the right bank of the Dnieper that in some places they did not even have time to take off the clothes that they had hanged to dry. This is reported by journalists working in the Kherson region and the Ukrainian military, writes The New York Times.

In the village of Blahodatne, for example, they found not only unmade beds, a military uniform crumpled on the floor, but also washed clothes. In the ammunition depot, shells were thrown on the floor with screwed-in fuses, ready for battle.

“They were running in a hurry, they were preparing to shoot us with this ammunition, but they didn’t have enough time,” one of the Ukrainian soldiers told The New York Times.

Residents of the village of Blahodatne told Reuters that the invaders evacuated in silence, they did not even talk to each other.

Although the Russian command announced the complete evacuation of troops, the residents of Kherson claim that the invaders dressed in civilian clothes remained in the city.

However, the helicopter became the most expensive trophy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Chornobaivka, the Kherson region.

“Not a single unit of military equipment and weapons has been left on the right bank of the Dnieper — the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. In fact, they even abandoned the helicopter. This was not the case in the Kharkiv region either,” commented journalist Denys Kazansky.

Propaganda writes that this Mi-8 was captured by them at the beginning of a full-scale war. According to their version, they decided to leave the helicopter behind as it was old and there was no documentation for it. However, propaganda is outraged that the occupiers did not burn the helicopter down — the Armed Forces of Ukraine will put it in order and return it to service in a couple of months. The Russians, let us note, could not do this for 8.5 months of occupation.

The Russian army fled from Kherson, leaving a lot of other military equipment behind. Thanks to such a lend-lease, samples of modern tanks and other weapons got into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This was told to Channel 24 by the military-political observer of the Information Resistance group Oleksandr Kovalenko. He believes that it is too early to talk about the amount of captured Russian equipment that came to us. It is only being collected. Also, many of its samples are mined.

Kovalenko noted that a large number of heavy and light armored vehicles remained on the Right Bank of the Dnieper.

“The so-called evacuation of the Russian occupiers took place with the use of road transport — KAMAZ, Ural trucks. For the most part, they left tracked vehicles. And they tried to evacuate on the vehicles that have wheels” the expert notes.

The observer believes that under the lend-lease, the T-62M, T-60 tanks and other modifications will get to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“I was surprised that the T-90M “Breakthrough” tank had already been found — this is the last modernization of the T-90 tanks in Russia nowadays,” Kovalenko notes.

According to him, Ukraine now has more T-90 tanks in its arsenal than Turkmenistan. Also, Ukraine is the second country that has the most modern tank. Earlier, only Russia had such tanks.

Kovalenko noted that among the trophies of Ukrainians there are also very rare modifications of AFVs. For example, the BMP-1AM “Busurmanin” is an artificial modernization of the BMP-1.

“Even in Russia there are few of them. And in Ukraine, there are already four units of such infantry fighting vehicles in service - quite rare. There is also information that during a full-scale war with Russia, 14 such infantry fighting vehicles were destroyed,” Kovalenko noted.

The expert said that the number of trophies will increase. It seems unlikely, however, that among them there will be a large number of high-quality ones, such as the T-90, BMP-1AM, Typhoon-K. Mostly these will be Soviet samples removed from storage.