Published:May 4, 2022

-American Military News

 

A U.S. Army veteran who went to Ukraine to fight against invading Russian forces stole a Russian assault vehicle on Tuesday.

Former Army Staff Sgt. James Vasquez, 47, shared a video to Twitter on Tuesday, showing one of his teammates driving what appears to be a Russian-made BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle up out of a densely wooded area. Vasquez tweeted, “Stole a Russian assault vehicle!!”

As the vehicle drives by in the video, Vasquez can be heard saying “Thanks Russia.” Another voice in the video could be heard saying, “It’s ours now.”

Vasquez, 47, left his job and family in Connecticut in March to fight alongside Ukrainian forces. Since arriving in Ukraine, Vasquez has shared videos of several of his exploits, including helping Ukrainian forces destroy what he said were seven Russian tanks. The videos he posted that day showed Russian tanks and other armored vehicles.

Vasquez’s latest video shows he is still actively working alongside Ukraine’s other defenders to inflict losses against the Russian side.

In one video, Vasquez showed a man carrying away what appeared to be a heavy machine gun, possibly a DShK which fires a Russian-made 12.7x108mm round similar to the U.S. .50 BMG (12.7x99mm). In the video, Vasquez refers to the machine gun as a “.50 cal.”

The Army veteran shared several other videos and pictures purporting to show Russian weapons he helped capture on Tuesday.

Vasquez shared another video of what appears to be a PKM general-purpose machine gun resting alongside some type of rocket launcher.

“Was a real good day,” Vasquez tweeted with a video showing an array of captured weapons, including boxes of hand grenades, multiple belt-fed machine guns and a variety of rocket launchers.