Destroyed Russian tanks are the latest Ukrainian roadside attraction

Morbid exploration

Serhii Grishin was alone the first time he carefully explored the charred remains of a destroyed Russian tank on a quiet Ukrainian back road. He noticed clumps of burnt human flesh among the twisted metal debris, but felt nothing.

His grief was already dedicated to his fallen Ukrainian compatriots, citizens and soldiers after Vladimir Putin decided to fight his way into their country last February.

A kind of catharsis

The site of the rusting vehicle, a symbol of Ukrainian victory over their attackers in a failed assault on the capital of Kyiv, lifted his spirits. He decided to invite friends to the site so they too could share the moment and save it for posterity.

As he and his friends took photos of a burnt-out armored personnel carrier, Grishin noted, “I’m glad to see they haven’t gone any further down the road. I hope there are more places with destroyed Russian material. Don’t worry, Serhii, there are.

With the Russian withdrawal from the capital to the east, many displaced residents of the Kyiv region have taken to the highways to return home weeks after fleeing for security reasons. The roads are jammed with citizens in a rush to get home, but now there’s an added attraction they didn’t miss on the way out; dozens of Russian vehicles destroyed. They more than occasionally house human remains and sit surrounded by trash and strange remnants of war.

These twisted metal relics have become something of a macabre roadside attraction for Ukrainians frantically trying to rebuild their lives. Digging through destroyed Russian military equipment gives many a sense of relief at their survival and pride at the achievements of the Ukrainian military in pushing the aggressors far from home.

Physical evidence of war can have quite an emotional effect on people. In Ukraine, these sentiments tend to manifest in a stream of selfies now appearing on the internet.

Somehow, they say, “Look what we have done. We survived and we are back”. It’s kind of a 21st century major for the Kremlin being broadcast to the world via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Victoria Yarmuska is a resident of Bucha who fled the fighting at the start of the war. Neighbors told him that his house had fortunately survived the bombings that had destroyed so much of his town. On the way back, she and her husband Igor took the time to stop and search the remains of at least half a dozen charred Russian military vehicles. While doing so, they took several photos of each other.

“I feel like I’m watching a movie, a really scary movie” she says. “Watching all of this with my own eyes, I’m starting to realize this is the reality.”

And it is this reality that many try to capture by exploring the long-abandoned charred vehicles stuck in the roadside mud. Karolis Kairys is a good friend of Mr. Grishin. He was in Ukraine to oversee the delivery of a vehicle which he helped organize through his Car Enthusiasts Club for the Ukrainian Army.

He was eager to share his photos on Facebook as he says some of his friends back home in Lithuania are skeptical of Ukraine’s military victories.

He tells us, “They still believe in Russian propaganda and think it’s not tanks, it’s all staged.” He noted with a chuckle that the Javelin anti-tank missiles supplied by the United States “work well.”

Indeed they are, Karolis; indeed they are.