On August 18, 2025, footage released by Russia’s state-owned broadcaster RT set social media and diplomatic circles ablaze: a US-made M113 armored personnel carrier, festooned with both Russian and American flags, barreled through the battered village of Mala Tokmachka in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. The video, which RT claimed showed the vehicle "rushing into battle" under the command of Russia’s 70th Motorized Rifle regiment, was more than just a battlefield oddity—it became a potent symbol, and a new flashpoint in the ongoing propaganda war shadowing the brutal conflict in Ukraine.
According to RT, the M113—one of over 900 supplied to Ukraine by the US Department of Defense since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022—had been "repaired and revived" after being captured. The vehicle, now clad in an anti-drone cage, was reportedly "carrying out combat missions" for Russian forces. The broadcaster made much of the spectacle, suggesting that a US vehicle, flying both Russian and American flags into combat against Ukrainian troops, was a "sign of the times."
Ukrainian officials, however, saw something far more sinister in the footage. Andriy Yermak, chief aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky, reposted the video on X (formerly Twitter) and denounced Russia’s display of the US flag as "utter arrogance." He accused Moscow of "using the symbols of the United States in their own terrorist, aggressive war with the killing of civilians." The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, a Ukrainian government agency, echoed this sentiment on social media, writing that Russia was "further trolling peace efforts by placing American flags alongside Russian flags on their meat assault wagons yesterday in Mala Tokmachka."
This episode unfolded at a particularly sensitive moment in the war and its diplomatic aftermath. President Zelensky was scheduled to visit the White House on the same day, joined by a contingent of European leaders determined to urge US President Donald Trump not to concede to the most sweeping demands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The stakes could hardly be higher: the future of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, its aspirations for NATO membership, and the broader security architecture of Europe all hung in the balance.
The timing of the RT video was hardly accidental. It appeared just three days after the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, which took place on August 15, 2025. While the summit did not yield any immediate, public breakthroughs, Russian media wasted no time in framing the meeting as a diplomatic victory, a sign that Moscow’s international isolation—imposed after its 2022 invasion—was finally beginning to thaw. According to Business Insider, Dan Rice, a former US Army officer and special advisor to Ukraine’s military, said, "The Russian information space is working overtime to frame the summit as a major victory for reestablishing normal relations with the US. It’s not. It’s the US attempting to end a war started by a madman with nuclear weapons. The US and the West will never be normalized again with Putin."
The symbolism of the American flag, fluttering alongside the Russian tricolor atop a US-built armored vehicle, was not lost on observers. For Ukrainian officials, it was a calculated act of psychological warfare, aimed at undermining US-Ukrainian solidarity and sowing doubt about the West’s commitment. For Russian propagandists, it was a visual coup—an image that seemed to suggest American hardware, and perhaps American resolve, could be turned to Moscow’s purposes.
But the propaganda battle was only one front. On the ground, the fighting raged on. Earlier on August 18, Ukrainian forces reported destroying another Russian-captured M113 armored vehicle during heavy clashes near Kotlyne in the Donetsk region. Open-source intelligence site Oryx, which tracks equipment losses in the war, estimates that at least 397 of the M113s supplied to Ukraine have been destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured by Russian forces since the conflict began. Official figures remain elusive, but the numbers underline the ferocity—and the cost—of the fighting.
Meanwhile, the diplomatic chess game continued. The Alaska summit, the first such meeting between Trump and Putin since 2015, was intended to jumpstart a peace process that has thus far proven stubbornly resistant to progress. Yet, the positions on each side remain deeply entrenched. According to reports from both RT and Business Insider, Trump, after his meeting with Putin, expressed support for one of Moscow’s key demands: that Ukraine surrender the Donbas region—a resource-rich and strategically vital area—in exchange for an end to hostilities. On the night of August 17, Trump told Zelensky he could "almost immediately" end Russia’s war on Ukraine if Ukraine abandoned its ambitions to join NATO and agreed not to reclaim Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
These proposals have rattled nerves in Kyiv and among Ukraine’s European allies. There are longstanding fears that Trump could press for a deal that would leave Ukraine diminished and vulnerable, handing Moscow a victory it could not achieve on the battlefield. Yet there are glimmers of hope, too. Trump officials have floated the possibility of "major land swaps and security guarantees" for Ukraine as part of any settlement. While Ukraine has consistently rejected calls to relinquish territory, it has repeatedly sought robust security guarantees from the West.
What remains unclear is how much room for compromise exists. As Business Insider noted, it is not yet known what—if any—concessions Zelensky might be prepared to make during his high-stakes talks in Washington. For Ukraine, the stakes are existential: its sovereignty, its borders, and its future as a European nation. For Russia, the prospect of an American-brokered settlement that recognizes its territorial gains would be a crowning achievement. For the US and its European allies, the challenge is to balance the urgent need to end a devastating war with the imperative to uphold international law and the principles of national self-determination.
As the world watched the spectacle of the M113 rolling into battle under two flags, it was clear that the war in Ukraine is being waged not just with guns and tanks, but with images, symbols, and stories. The battle for hearts and minds—across continents and in the corridors of power—remains as fierce as ever.
In the end, the fate of Ukraine may hinge as much on what happens in front of the cameras as on what unfolds in the trenches. For now, both sides are fighting for every inch—of territory, of narrative, and of international support.