Ukrainians wipe out entire column of Russian tanks

A column of Russian tanks and armored combat vehicles was methodically obliterated by Ukraine Marines armed with portable missile launchers in the Donetsk region, a heart-pounding viral video shows.

The two-minute-long footage, set to a headbanging Ukrainian rap song, has been viewed on Twitter close to 159,000 times as of Friday.

It shows at least seven Russian armored personnel carriers and tanks traveling single-file through a desolate landscape riddled with craters from rocket shells and dotted with homes that had been reduced to piles of rubble.

What the Russians didn’t realize was that they were driving straight into an ambush led by members of Ukraine’s 36th Separate Marine Brigade lying in wait all around the perimeter.

In the clip, Kyiv’s troops brandishing US-supplied surface-to-air Javelin missile launchers on their shoulders wasted no time unleashing hell on the enemy vehicles, prompting them to break formation and scatter.

But the evasive maneuvers prove futile, as the anti-tank missiles strike their moving targets one by one, causing them to burst into flames.

In one instance, a missile hits a fleeing Russian tank, sending plumes of thick smoke into the sky.

Three soldiers frantically jump out of their burning tank and flee on foot, with one of the men crawling on his hands and knees in the dirt, possibly due to an injury.

Another Russian tank narrowly escapes a direct hit and attempts to fight back by firing on the Ukrainians’ positions, but a second Javelin missile quickly finds its way to it.

Later, one of the smoldering Russian combat vehicles explodes into a huge fireball, sending chunks of debris raining down on the grim surroundings.

The action in the field is intercut with shots of Ukrainian Marines taking part in the assault, with one seen flashing a “V” for victory sign.

“The way Marine Javelin throwers are burning Russia armored vehicles in the Donetsk region is a real art,” the 36th Brigade wrote in the title of the video.

The US has provided Ukraine with 8,500 Javelin anti-tank missiles as part of its $46 billion military assistance package.

According to the latest numbers from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, Kyiv’s forces have put Western weaponry to good use, destroying around 3,615 enemy tanks and more than 6,970 armored combat vehicles in the 13 months of the war.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted that his country has the capability to produce and retrofit more than 1,600 tanks by 2026.

But the Institute for the Study of War think tank was quick to throw cold water on Putin’s rosy prediction, saying that due to Russia’s “limited industrial capacity,” it would take at least six years to hit his lofty production goal.

Having to contend with large-scale equipment losses on the battlefield, Russia has recently resorted to taking old, crumbling tanks dating back to the Cold War era out of storage and giving them a facelift to make them fit for combat.