Moment Russian soldiers surrender with white flag amid rapid Ukrainian counteroffensive

RUSSIAN soldiers cornered during Ukrainian's lightning-paced counteroffensive have been filmed surrendering with a white flag flying from their tank.

Incredible footage shows the vehicle heading to Ukrainian lines, as thousands are said to be throwing down their weapons in the face of Kyiv’s blitz and Russian continues to lose swathes of territory.

The lightning advance puts Ukraine's defenders in striking distance of Kherson city – the only provincial capital captured since the February 24 invasion that is still in Russian control.

And senior US officials last night said Ukraine could even take back Crimea, if the military continues to advance at its current rate.

The official told The Telegraph: "The recapture of Crimea by Ukraine is a distinct possibility and can no longer be discounted."

Dr Mike Martin, a fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College London, said: “The Ukrainians have had a great day in the south - Russian lines are continuing to collapse and pull back.”

In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed his troops had liberated three more settlements in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine and their offensive "continues".

Putin’s forces have now been ordered to retreat as pro-Russian military bloggers revealed the frontline has collapsed with the loss off a staggering 1500sq miles.

In the footage, taken on the Kherson front, a Russian BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle with several Russian soldiers inside can be seen driving down a hill.

One soldier is on the turret, with a white flag flying on the barrel and another on the machine gun in front of him.

Clearly tense Ukrainian soldiers taking cover eye up the vehicle as it turns and drives along in front of them.

One of them then emerges with his gun trained on the tank as others also raise their weapons.

As it comes to a halt, the Ukrainians move towards it, all with their guns trained, as the Russian who was on the turret jumps off with his hands in the air.

As gun-toting Ukrainians surround the vehicle, other Russians begin emerging and following orders of the Ukrainians, lie in the ground as they’re frisked.

It's believed the surrender was pre-arranged through a special hotline set up by the Ukrainians to allow Russians to quit the battlefield.

Andriy Yusov, from Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukaine’s Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, revealed “tens of thousands of troops” have called the hotline.

Thousands of Russian troops face being encircled on the west bank of the Dnipro after the only bridges across the four-mile-wide river were blitzed with US and UK supplied long-range rockets.

Russian state media quoted pro-Moscow local official Kirill Stremousov as saying troops were "conducting a regrouping in order to gather their strength and deliver a retaliatory blow”.

Russian troops are expected to fall back to the Inhulets river, just a few miles east of the city.

Meanwhile further north Ukrainian armed forces in the Kharkiv area have advanced 12 miles into Russia's defensive zone towards the Luhansk region, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said.

Putin signed the final papers to annex four regions of Ukraine while his military struggled to control the new territory.

Putin last week signed treaties that purported to absorb Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions into Russia.

The annexation followed Kremlin-orchestrated referendums in Ukraine that the Ukrainian government and the West have dismissed as a sham.

As his soldiers face humiliation, it’s feared Putin may turn the war in Ukraine nuclear by detonating a bomb on the border in a message to the West.

Russia has been rattling its nuclear sabre as its forces continue to be pushed back even as Moscow declared four regions as their own.

Its biggest submarine, Belgorod, which can be armed with "apocalypse" nuclear torpedoes is on the move, and there have been reports a convoy linked to a nuclear unit on the move in Russia.