A still-unidentified Ukrainian man whose car was crushed by an armored vehicle in Kyiv on February 25 resurfaced this week in an interview published by the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
Video of the incident spread around the world, leaving observers shocked that he survived the incident and is well enough to speak. Many details of the event – in which a large armored vehicle appeared to suddenly deviate and drive over the victim’s car, flattening it – remain a mystery, such as who was operating the tank and why it moved so erratically.
Pro-Ukrainian media sources initially claimed the tank belonged to the Russian military and deliberately attacked a civilian, but insufficient proof has surfaced for this claim and the make of the vehicle suggests it is actually a Ukrainian vehicle.
According to France 24, some videos of the incident indicate Ukrainian fighters were shooting at the driver and accusing him of being a Russian “saboteur.”
Warning – Graphic Footage:
The unnamed man told media outlets “he wants to join Ukraine’s territorial defense forces as soon as he recovers,” RFE/RL reported on Tuesday.
The U.S. government-funded RFE/RL published an undated video on March 8 in which the Ukrainian man, whose identity remains unknown, participates in an interview from a hospital bed with a person off-camera. The interviewer asks the man, reportedly 53 years old, what he plans to do after his eventual discharge from the hospital. In response, the man replies, “What are my future plans? Get out of here. Learn to walk again. After I recover I’ll join the territorial defense forces.”
The man referred to Ukraine’s territorial defense forces, which are a military reserve component of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Elsewhere in the video interview published by RFE/RL on March 8, the man recounted how his car came to collide with the armored vehicle, stating, “There were no other cars on the road. [The armored vehicle] veered suddenly into my lane and hit me. Then it reversed.”
RFE/RL reported Tuesday it remains unknown who operated the armored vehicle involved in the accident. The American broadcaster described the armored vehicle as having “run over” the Ukrainian man’s car while he was “inside” the compact automobile.
This general view shows a Russian tank in the city of Irpin, west of Kyiv, on March 4, 2022. (ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)
Russia launched a military invasion of neighboring Ukraine on the morning of February 24. The operation launched 72 hours after the Kremlin announced plans to formally recognize the independence of two Russian-backed separatist states in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass territory on February 21.
The conflict remained ongoing at press time Wednesday despite repeated attempts at peace negotiations between government representatives of Russia and Ukraine in recent days.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russian state media on March 9 the Kremlin expects a meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “will take place on the sidelines of a diplomatic forum in Turkey’s Antalya on Thursday [March 10].”
“We believe that since Ukraine has confirmed it, the meeting will indeed take place, particularly because it was initiated by Turkey, the host of the event on the sidelines of which the meeting is expected to be held,” she told the Russian state-run Sputnik radio station.
Zakharova referred to the Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF), which Antalya, Turkey, will host from March 11 to March 13.
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