Ukraine Ambassador Mocks Russian Setbacks With Video of Fleeing Chickens

A Ukrainian ambassador mocked Russian troops "regrouping" amid a counteroffensive in eastern Kharkiv with a video of fleeing chickens.

The video shared on Twitter by Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, as well as Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, showed what looked to be at least dozens of chickens running across a road. It was not immediately clear why they were running and where they came from.

"Exclusive video footage of russian troops 'regrouping' as part of a 'controlled withdrawal,'" Kyslytsya wrote in the post. "The innovative way of the 'regrouping' supposedly support [Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry] peskov's statement of today that russia will continue its 'military intervention' in Ukraine 'until the objectives are achieved.'"

Ukraine launched a surprise counteroffensive in the eastern Kharkiv region earlier this month while also conducting a simultaneous push to retake territory in the southern Kherson region.

General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander of Ukraine's military, said in a Telegram post on Sunday that his forces had regained 3,000 square kilometers of territory from the Russians since the beginning of the month. In Kharkiv alone, Ukrainian troops had pushed to within 50 kilometers, about 30 miles, of the Ukraine-Russia border, he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a Telegram post on Saturday that "a decision was made to regroup" some of its forces from the areas of Balakliya and Izium to the eastern Donetsk region, NBC reported. Balakliya and Izium are two previously Russian-occupied cities in the Kharkiv region that were reportedly retaken by Ukrainian troops in the past few days.

The ministry said in the post that the forces were reallocated "in order to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas," according to NBC. Ukraine said earlier this month that Russian troops were given a September 15 deadline to push to the administrative borders of the Donetsk Oblast in Donbas, an eastern Ukrainian region that houses several Russian-backed separatist groups.

Newsweek was not able to independently verify the report.

Kyslytsya's Twitter post appeared to mock this regrouping explanation from Russia, as well as Peskov's comments during a conference call with reporters on Monday that Russia would continue the offensive until reaching its goals in Ukraine.

"The special military operation is underway and will continue until the goals that have been set are achieved," he said, according to Reuters.

In a September 8 press briefing, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova reiterated that Russia's goals were to remove "threats" to Russia's security in Ukraine, protect people in Donbas and "demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine." Russia has repeatedly listed "denazification" as one of its aims in Ukraine even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish.

"These objectives, as the Russian authorities repeated many times, will undoubtedly be achieved during the special military operation," Zakharova said.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Defense Ministry and the Kremlin for comment.