Ukraine Soldiers Stomp Russian Flags Into Dirt in Liberated Village: Video

A video that went viral Friday showing Ukrainian soldiers stomping Russian flags into the ground after liberating the village of Makiivka in the Luhansk region.

The Kyiv Post shared the video and tweeted that Makiivka and Herkivka had been liberated from the Russian army this week, citing officials and preliminary reports.

The video, which was also posted by NEXTA TV in Belarus and gained nearly 50,000 views, shows two Ukrainian soldiers smiling at the camera as they stood and lightly stomped on the flags. Another soldier who appeared to be carrying a camera also stomped the flags into the dirt while filming fellow soldiers.

Both villages are east of the Oskil River between Borova in the Kharkiv region, Lyman in the Donetsk and Svatove in the Luhansk, according to Euromaidan Press, which also shared the video of the Ukrainian soldiers.

Recapturing both villages from Russian troops indicates that Ukrainian soldiers are continue to move south of Svatove, an important district center in the Luhansk region, according to Euromaidan Press.

Ukrainian forces are advancing through the south of the country as they head to Nova Kakhovka, according to the military blog MilitaryLand.net. Additionally, Ukraine's advances near an important area that supplies water for Crimea have posed a threat to Moscow's control of the peninsula it annexed in 2014.

New Voice of Ukraine journalist Euan MacDonald wrote this week that Nova Kakhovka was "an important objective as it's at the head of the canal that supplies Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimea with lots of its water."

Late last month, Ukrainian forces liberated the village of Kupyansk-Vuzlovy and raised its flag in recognition of its success in the eastern counteroffensive.

"The village of Kupyansk-Vuzlovy in the Kharkiv region is liberated," the Ukainian Ministry of Defense tweeted. "One of the largest railway stations in the east of Ukraine is located there. The occupiers used it in their supply route. The offensive in the Kharkiv region continues."

As of September 25, only 6 percent of the Kharkiv region reportedly remained under Russian control, with Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, saying that a total of 454 settlements in Kharkiv had been liberated.

Still, Russia seems to be persistent in continuing its war despite recent successes of Ukrainian counteroffensive operations, and even after Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement of a "partial mobilization" of forces. Some experts think that Putin intends to make the war in Ukraine as long and destructive as possible.

"Putin is showing no sign of reducing his goals, and the people around him are either also completely inflexible, or else they lack the power to change anything," Dmitry Gorenburg of the Center for Naval Analysis told Newsweek. "As long as Putin is in charge, I don't think he will end this, no matter how costly it becomes even for Russia itself."

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry for comment.