A Russian tank has been filmed crashing into and crushing a civilian car being driven by an elderly person in a suburb of Ukraine‘s capital of Kyiv.
The incident, recorded from multiple angles, saw the armored vehicle driving down a main road leading through a residential area.
As the tank quickly approached the sedan driving in the opposite direction, it suddenly swerved towards it, giving the driver little time to react.
The much larger vehicle crashed head-on into the vehicle and rolled on top of it, crushing it under its weight, before rolling off and driving away. The car was shunted backwards and almost on to tram tracks.
Miraculously, reports said that the driver of the car survived the shocking crash, with a further video showing people working desperately to free them from the wreckage.
The incident occurred as Russian troops closed in on the Ukrainian capital after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion early on Thursday.
It was not immediately clear if the crash was intentional. Some reports said the tank was driving erratically, swerving and mounting pavements, before the crash.
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A Russian military vehicle has been filmed crashing into and rolling over a civilian car near Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv. Pictured: The aftermath of the crash, with the driver trapped inside
The incident, recorded from multiple angles, saw an armored truck driving down a main road leading through a residential area. As the armored vehicle came close to the civilian car, it suddenly swerved towards it – giving the driver little time to react
Pictured: The crushed car is seen in a video having been crashed into and crushed by a Russian military vehicle near Kyiv
Using tools including, an axe and a crowbar, a group of men are shown in a video working to get the door loose so they can rescue the person, who was trapped in the car that is almost completely destroyed.
Multiple video clips of the incident were shared on social media, with those posting it on Twitter reporting they were recorded in Obolon, found north of Kyiv.
One angle was taken from a window overlooking the street. While captured from a distance, the video shows the truck suddenly swerve into the car.
Another angle, taken from a window overlooking the multi-lane road, showed the aftermath of the crash, capturing the armored vehicle reversing off the car.
While the person’s rescue was not captured in the video, reports said afterwards the rescuers were able to get them out of the wreck.
Pictures also showed the destroyed vehicle, which was almost completely flattened by the armored truck. The windscreen was flat and level with the bonnet, which was also crumpled. The engine was also exposed.
The pictures showed the person must have been able to lean down into his seat and across the passenger seat in order to avoid being crushed.
Viktor Berbash, 58, a local resident, told The Sun that he to his balcony after he heard gunshots early on Friday.
‘I saw an armored vehicle and there was automatic fire. And here this car, with probably an anti-aircraft gun on it, was already here,’ he told the newspaper.
‘Two armored vehicles were driving along the road, and the second of them deliberately drove into the oncoming lane,’ he added.
‘It was not by chance, it was for fun, there was no need for this. And it just ran into this car. Stopped, reversed over it again and drove on.’
Users on Twitter said that the armored vehicle that crashed into the car appeared to be a 9K35 Strela-10 – a short-range surface-to-air missile system.
This was not immediately verified.
Miraculously, reports said that the driver of the car survived the shocking crash, with a further video (pictured) showing people working desperately to free them from the wreckage
Missiles pounded Ukraine’s capital on Friday as Russian forces pressed their advance and authorities in Kyiv said they were preparing for an assault aimed at overthrowing the government.
Air raid sirens wailed over Kyiv, a European city of three million people, and some residents sheltered in underground metro stations, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion that has shocked the world.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian aircraft had been shot down and crashed into a building in Kyiv overnight, setting it ablaze and injuring eight people.
A senior Ukrainian official said Russian forces would enter areas just outside the capital later on Friday and that Ukrainian troops were defending positions on four fronts despite being outnumbered.
Kyiv city council warned residents of the Obolon district, near an air base seized on Thursday by Russian paratroopers, to stay indoors because of ‘the approach of active hostilities’.
Windows were blasted out of a 10-storey apartment block near Kyiv’s main airport, where a two-metre crater filled with rubble showed where a shell had struck before dawn. A policeman said people were injured there but not killed.
Pictured: The wreckage of the vehicle lies on the road near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on February 25, 2022
‘How we can live through it in our time? What should we think. Putin should be burnt in hell along with his whole family,’ said Oxana Gulenko, sweeping broken glass from her room.
A neighbour, Soviet army veteran Anatoliy Marchenko, 57, could not find his cat that had run away during the shelling.
‘I know people there, they are my friends,’ he said of Russia. ‘What do they need from me? A war has come to my house.’
Witnesses said loud explosions could be heard in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, close to Russia’s border, and air raid sirens sounded over Lviv in the west. Authorities reported heavy fighting in the eastern city of Sumy.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people have fled the major cities.
Dozens have been reported killed. Russian troops seized the Chernobyl former nuclear power plant north of Kyiv as they advanced on the city from Belarus. Ukraine said radiation levels were elevated there.
US officials believe Russia’s initial aim is topple President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and ‘decapitate’ his government. Zelenskiy said the troops were coming for him, but he would stay in Kyiv.
Pictured: Servicemen of the Ukrainian National Guard take positions in central Kyiv, Ukraine February 25, 2022, in anticipation of the coming Russian invasion
A man sits outside his destroyed building after bombings on the eastern Ukraine town of Chuguiv on February 24, 2022, as Russian armed forces invade Ukraine
‘(The) enemy has marked me down as the number one target,’ Zelenskiy said in a video message. ‘My family is the number two target. They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.’
Russia launched its invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by Putin, in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
Putin says Ukraine is an illegitimate state carved out of Russia, a view Ukrainians see as aimed at erasing their more than thousand-year history.
Putin’s full aims remain obscure. He says he does not plan a military occupation, only to disarm Ukraine and remove its leaders.
But it is not clear how a pro-Russian leader could be installed without holding much of the country. Russia has floated no name of such a figure and none has come forward.
After Moscow denied for months it was planning an invasion, news that Putin had ordered one came as a shock to Russians accustomed to viewing their ruler of 22 years as a cautious strategist. Many Russians have friends and family in Ukraine.
Russia has cracked down on dissent and state media have relentlessly characterized Ukraine as a threat, but thousands of Russians took to the streets to protest against the war. Hundreds were swiftly arrested.
One pop star posted a video on Instagram opposing the war, and the head of a Moscow state-run theater quit, saying she would not take her salary from a murderer.
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