Ukrainians turning to TikTok and YouTube for how-to videos for driving Russian military vehicles

While YouTube and TikTok have taught a generation how to tie ties and that mustard on watermelon isn’t as gross as it sounds, the increasingly tense situation in Eastern Europe is leading social media to teach young Ukrainians something new: how to drive abandoned Russian military equipment. 

One TikTok user called nastyatyman has uploaded several now-viral videos showing them doing just that. One shows the young woman the driver’s seat of a Russian armored personnel carrier. “If you come across a free or abandoned armored personnel carrier — keep a life hack how to run it,” her she captioned her post in Ukrainian. 

Like an influencer showing off the Bugatti some simp bought for her, the video shows nastyatyman’s painted nails flipping switches, priming the engine, putting the truck in gear and firing it up, and her sneaker-clad feet hitting the gas, all while she cheerfully narrates.

Other videos play out like a late-night used car commercial, with the young woman asking why waste your money on a van, when there are plenty of spacious Russian options — some with wrapping still on the seats — that were left during the country’s invasion into her country.

The start-up video had been liked more than 650,000 times on TikTok alone as of early Monday afternoon.

Strange days indeed.