"On February 24 of last year, the advance units of the occupiers appeared on the Warsaw highway.

The helicopter landing began, all forces were sent to the Gostomel airport.

I have personally seen more helicopters at one time than I have ever seen in my entire life.

There were a lot of them," Serhiy Rudenko, a resident of Irpen and a military officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, recalls the beginning of the Great War. 

Serhii was a participant in the defense of Irpen.

Together with his comrades, he defended his hometown with bare hands from the enemy, armed to the teeth: "In about two hours, we gathered about two dozen people who were ready to bite the katsaps with their teeth.

But everyone was without weapons at that time.

However, we already had a good barricade.

So we set fire to the rocks, made a breakthrough.

They showed that there are people here with serious intentions.

Construction provided us with a crane, and its motor worked and hummed like a tank engine.

The orcs who were standing in the forest thought that there must be some military equipment here.

It was a psychological deception that helped us in the early hours, when their advanced units had already landed nearby." 

While Western partners were deciding whether to give weapons to Ukraine, they were desperate to acquire them on the battlefield alone. 

"The local population reported that there was a detonated Ork vehicle nearby, and they saw a lot of ammunition in the back.

That's how we got an assortment of weapons - at the expense of trophies," Serhiy Rudenko recalls. 

The occupiers carried ceremonial uniforms with them and hoped that they would be greeted with flowers.

However, having met resolute resistance, they began to throw equipment on the battlefield en masse.

"For example, in Brovary, we saw an abandoned BTR-80," says Andrii Nebytov, head of the National Police in the Kyiv region. 

"When we approached it, in fact, it was in good condition, but its turret was jammed.

And this prevented the Russians from conducting effective fire.

Of course, they got scared and dropped this armored personnel carrier.

Now he serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine," he says. 

"One of the elements of our barricade was a trophy Russian KaMAZ, which was in front of the bridge on Varshavka," Serhiy Rudenko recalls. 

"He became the central element of the barricade.

And he stood to the last.

Direct artillery hits did only minor damage to it.

That's how he played his role in the defense of the city."

Only in the first six months of the Great War, the Armed Forces received more than 400 tanks, 700 armored vehicles and 170 artillery systems as trophies.

This is more than all Western partners have given us.

According to British intelligence, currently half of Ukraine's tank fleet consists... of trophy equipment. 

"Of course, during the deoccupation of the Kyiv region, we tried to obtain as much enemy equipment as possible and handed it over to the Armed Forces of Ukraine," says Andriy Nebytov.

"And now a part of it is in custody of Kyiv and the Kyiv region." 

"Our unit uses a car that is currently a tractor," says Serhiy Rudenko about the valuable trophy.

- This is a car belonging to the occupiers, it was restored.

We managed to collect one more from trophy spare parts." 

Pavlo is one of the main Russian tank hunters.

On February 22, endless columns of enemy troops began to advance past his quiet village in Chernihiv Oblast.

"It's scary how much of that equipment was sold, 300 units per day," recalls Pavlo Struk.

- In Kruty, the katsaps were well given, and they fled here, to Doroginka.

They threw a T-64 tank, it was quite a tank!

Well, I'm with Dima on a moped, with my adopted son.

We went, looked - yes, it is standing.

We looked inside - the ammunition is full!

There were two hundred-liter barrels of oil at the back.

The equipment is in motion, the batteries are standing, 4 batteries of 24 volts each." 

"It is important, if people see any equipment, its movement, that they report it not to social networks, but to special bodies: either the police or the Armed Forces.

After that, experts will be able to figure it out and make a decision," Andriy Nebytov emphasizes. 

"I call the matchmaker, he works for me in Nizhyn," Pavlo Struk continues the story.

- I say, the tank is there, on the move, everything is as it should be.

The suitor arrived, with two more friends.

They walked, looked around.

I say: "Guys, I went, I'll see that no one is there." 

"I walk further along the forest strip, pass the bushes, look - he is standing, looking at me.

The equipment is so scary, it was "Typhoon".

I look as if there is no one near her.

He walked around, looked as if nothing was mined anywhere, looked into the tanks.

Well, we got her and a child!

They jumped out onto the asphalt.

And there is quite a climb.

And that "Typhoon" seemed not to notice him.

The technique is, of course, strong.

They sent our boys to the Armed Forces." 

The Typhoon, accidentally won by a peasant, is the pride of the Russian defense industry.

Its cost is about one million dollars.

This monster weighs 24 tons and consumes 80 liters of fuel per hundred kilometers.

In order for our defenders to have something to refuel this and other trophy equipment, the villagers handed over an enemy fuel truck complete with it.

"Ours near Bezuglivka gave them a nice bream.

So we had a full gasoline truck parked in the center, under the top of the diesel tank.

Everything went to meet the needs of the Armed Forces," reports villager Pavlo Struk. 

Fleeing from the Armed Forces, the enemy destroyed expensive artillery and shells.

Whole mountains of ammunition were lying in the middle of the village of Sindarevske in Chernihiv Oblast.

But they threatened to detonate at any moment.

"They left the howitzer and threw all the shells from it, somewhere around three KamAZs.

Some were folded, and others were simply thrown from the cars in order to escape faster," Pavlo mocks the occupiers. 

"Dima and I took the car trailer to the car.

We loaded 10 boxes.

They jumped out and drove off.

Yes, everyone understood that it was dangerous.

So what to do?

We need to somehow save the village." 

During the war, Pavlo won so much equipment that an entire unit could be equipped with it.

In addition to a tank, a Typhoon, a fuel truck and three KamAZ shells, the villager handed over to our armed forces enemy BMPs, a medical vehicle and a large artillery tractor for digging trenches. 

"All the equipment I took away, I gave it to the Armed Forces - this is our people's lend-lease," says Pavlo Struk.