Ukrainian Farmers vs. Russian Army

Submission 33,854

Part of a series on 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. [View Related Entries]

About

Ukrainian Farmers vs. Russian Army, also known as Ukrainian Farmers Stealing Russian Tanks, refers to memes made about farmers in Ukraine humorously defeating the Russian military and Vladimir Putin during the 2021-2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict. The meme trend started after multiple videos surfaced in early 2022 of Ukrainian farmers purportedly stealing Russian tanks, towing them away with their tractors and even selling them on websites like eBay.

Origin

On February 27th, 2022, a video was posted by Twitter^[1] user Arslon_Xudosi showing a Ukrainian farmer in a tractor towing away a Russian tank, receiving roughly 835,800 views and 14,100 likes over the course of four days (shown below, top). Additionally, Twitter^[2] user yeg0rpetrov replied with a secondary video on the 27th, showing the same tank being towed. The video (shown below, bottom) earned roughly 10,200 views and over 120 likes in the same amount of time. Despite these two tweets being the first to surface in the mainstream, the original, Ukrainian poster is unknown.

Spread

Half an hour after yeg0rpetrov's tweet on February 27th, 2022, Twitter^[3] user perfiliev also tweeted the video, earning roughly 130,500 likes in the same amount of time. This aforementioned tweet inspired meme creators to exploit the footage, like Twitter^[4] user TCymreig on the 28th, who put the video to Benny Hill music and earned roughly 2,900 likes in three days (shown below).

On February 27th, Twitter^[5] user ItsChaBoyPerls posted a meme that used the Spider-Man Pointing At Spider-Man template, earning roughly 1,400 likes in four days (shown below, left). On February 28th, Redditor Certain-Garbage3304 posted a meme to /r/dankmemes^[6] that used a Rick and Morty template, earning roughly 20,000 upvotes over the course of three days (shown below, right).

On February 28th, another video surfaced of a Ukrainian farmer towing a Russian tank, posted by the Twitter^[7] account ua_industrial, earning roughly 23,700 views in three days (shown below).

Memes were then made using this new video, like one posted on March 2nd to Know Your Meme^[8] by the user Skary Spookster, who earned 27 upvotes in one day (shown below).

A third video surfaced on March 2nd of more Ukrainian farmers purportedly using their tractors to tow away Russian tanks. It was tweeted by Twitter^[9] user StrictlyChristo, who earned roughly 32,100 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, top). Another video surfaced on the 2nd of Ukrainian farmers eating pizza while riding on a tank, earning roughly 2,800 likes in the same amount of time (shown below, bottom).

Also on March 2nd, the Twitter^[12] account ww3dailyn posted a screenshot of an eBay listing of a Russian tank being sold by a Ukrainian farmer, earning roughly 1,100 likes in one day (shown below). A link^[13] to the eBay listing was provided by a user in the replies, however, the link is no longer active.

Memes about Ukrainian farmers stealing tanks surfaced on multiple other social media platforms like TikTok ^[10] and Instagram ^[11] going into early March 2022, referencing other memes like Devious Licks, Ben Affleck Smoking and But It's Honest Work, among others. However, most Ukrainian farmer memes were shared on Reddit.