MOSCOW FOOLS
Inside collapse of Putin’s army as Ukraine flaunts spoils of war, generals flee and troops hold ‘surrender talks’
VLADIMIR Putin's demoralised and terrified soldiers are stealing clothes from Ukrainian homes and fleeing across the border on bikes in a desperate bid to escape conflict, reports have claimed.
In recent days, Vlad's army appears to have suffered an astonishing collapse, with Ukrainian officials estimating to have reclaimed some 3,000 square kilometres of territory from Russia.
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It marks the most dramatic shift in Ukrainian land since the start of the war in February.
British intelligence puts the scale of Ukrainian territory recaptured as twice the size of Greater London and including the key city of Izyum.
Ukraine has shown off some of the abandoned Russian military equipment which has fallen into its hands in recent days, estimated to be worth around £111 million.
It includes 20 tanks in working order and almost the same number again in need of repair as well as 40 or so armoured vehicles, another 100 military vehicles and 21 armoured personnel carriers.
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On top of the abandoned vehicles, Ukrainian forces also discovered an enormous amount of ammunition and military drones.
One expert claimed Kyiv's war trophies in the Kharkiv region amounted to more military hardware in three days than Germany had provided President Volodymyr Zelensky in six months.
The stunning advance reportedly came after a Ukrainian "disinformation campaign" about a southern counter-offensive diverted thousands of Russian troops in that direction, leaving the northeast desperately vulnerable.
Ukrainian media had urged the West not to report on the movements of Ukrainian troops over the past week, for fear of plans getting into the hands of the Russians.
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As Putin's soldiers flee their former strongholds, stories have emerged of panicked scenes amid the Russian collapse on its eastern front.
Reports claim Russian soldiers looted clothes from Ukrainian homes so they could disguise themselves as civilians, stealing bicycles in their desperation to escape.
And Vlad's poorly-equipped and inexperienced fighters were reportedly abandoned by their commanders in Russia, according to a Ukrainian in a newly-liberated village.
Olena Matvienko lives in the tiny village of Zaliznychne, 37 miles east of Kharkiv.
She said that although the villagers were scared of Russia's savage soldiers, by the end, they almost pitied them.
Within the first few hours of the Ukrainian onslaught, half of the troops fled their vehicles, she said.
I advise all Russian soldiers to surrender
Captured Russian grenade-launcher, 20
She overheard some of the remaining soldiers desperately radioing their unit commanders to send someone to help them.
"They said, 'You're on your own,'" Olena told . "They came into our houses to take clothes so the drones wouldn't see them in uniforms."
She went on: "They took our bicycles. Two of them pointed guns at my ex-husband until he handed them his car keys."
'BEGINNING OF THE END'
Russian soldiers have abandoned huge quantities of weapons in the face of the Ukrainian blitz, with experts claiming we are witnessing the "beginning of the end" of Russia's invasion.
So rapid was the speed of their collapse, that mounds of munition and even half-eaten food were left behind.
Channel 4 News' Paul McNamara reported: "So swift was the Russian retreat, they didn't have time to finish their lunches according to Ukraine's most senior soldier."
A 25-year-old Ukrainian soldier, Marty, told : "I think it's the beginning of the end for the Russian occupants.
"They were literally running from their positions, leaving their stuff and heading to the occupied territories. I think more significant gains are coming."
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This follows reports from a captured Russian soldier who claimed that his cowardly command had fled their posts.
The unnamed soldier, who has been stationed in Chuguyiv in the Kharkiv region since March, told his captors that his fellow troops had been left "demoralised" by the recent Ukrainian assault.
"During the entire period of being on the territory of Ukraine, I realised that the Russian army has lost faith in victory, and the command is trying to cowardly run away from the battlefield," the 20-year-old grenade launcher said, as reported by the .
The young soldier said he only survived because he surrendered in time, and urged his comrades to lay down their arms as well.
"I advise all Russian soldiers to surrender," he said. "And also to the mothers and fathers of their children - do not let them enter the contract so that they do not make sacrifices, it is not worth it.
"This is not our war."
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Meanwhile, with Putin's top brass in disarray, Ukrainian sources report that Putin has fired one of his chief commanders after just 16 days in the job.
Lieutenant General Roman Berdnikov, who was wrongly reported to have died in June, was fired from his position as commander of the Western Military District just two weeks after his appointment.
, quoting the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, said that he had been replaced by General Aleksandr Lapin.
For the first time, Russian state media has been forced to admit that its army has suffered heavy losses, after the reported death toll last week topped 50,000.
At the weekend, Russian troops raised the white flag and abandoned the city of Izium, far into Russian-controlled territory.
A Russian official has claimed that Ukrainian forces outnumbered those of Russia by eight to one in last week's Kharkiv counterattack.
These figures haven't been independently verified.
Vitaly Ganchev told Russian TV that Ukraine's army had seized a number of villages in the north and broken through to the Russian border.
On state-controlled TV, various Russian news pundits descended into blaming each other for the failed strategy in Ukraine.
At the beginning of the war, many in Russia bragged that its superior army would seize control of Ukraine's capital Kyiv in just three days.
But now, as the "special military operation" hits the 200-day milestone, various experts have lined up to find someone to blame.
In an almost unheard of attack, politicians in Russia have called for Putin to face charges of treason.
The lawmakers from a district council in Russia's second city St Petersburg - where Putin began his political career - face serious consequences for speaking out against the regime.
On Monday, it was reported that some of Putin's troops have begun negotiating with the Ukrainian Army to surrender their weapons.
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Ukraine's spoke to military spokeswoman Nataliya Humenyuk who said the Russian army "are trying to negotiate the terms of how they will lay down their weapons and come under the auspices of international humanitarian law".
She went on: "There is already such a certain destabilisation and demoralisation, so deep that even the [Russian] command realises that they have nowhere to go."
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