THIS is the humiliating moment Russian troops fled the frontline along a maze of trenches as Ukraine vowed to push them back to the border.

The embarrassing footage comes as Ukrainian defenders launched their much-anticipated counterattack in occupied Kherson overnight.

According to officials, Ukrainian troops have broken through the first line of Russian defences in the southern city and would not stop until the invaders were driven back into Russia.

"We will push them to the border. To our border, the line of which has not changed. The invaders know it well," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

"If they want to survive, it is time for the Russian military to flee."

His troops have wasted no time in targeting Russian arms depots in the city and troops fleeing strategic high-grounds in the country's south and east.

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In one clip that's gone viral, Ukrainian forces can be shelling a group of Russian troops on the outskirts of Donetsk Airport.

The short recording shows a column of Mad Vlad's troops scurrying through dug out trenches as a shell lands on them, taking a handful of fighters out.

The rest run off, leaving the injured and any stragglers behind to fend for themselves.

It comes as presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych said Ukrainian troops had breached several areas of Kherson in "a few hours".

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Kherson, which sits just north of annexed Crimea, has been under Russian control since the early days of the war.

Meanwhile, Russia's defence ministry has claimed the offensive had "failed miserably" with Ukraine suffering many casualties, RIA news agency reported.

More video footage has emerged showing Ukrainian forces storming Russia's defensive line in Kherson.

And a video has surfaced of a Russian tank shelled in Kharkiv in the north.

The push is part of a long-awaited fightback being launched by chiefs in Kyiv in an attempt to retake the south of the country. 

It follows weeks of Ukrainian attacks aimed at cutting off Russian forces there from main supply routes.

Ukraine’s Hromadske TV said three of its sources in Ukraine’s military confirmed that the first line of defence had been broken in the area.

Southern Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk announced the offensive in a news briefing and said it included the Kherson region.

She said Ukraine had struck more than 10 ammunition storage bases in the past week, and they had “unquestionably weakened the enemy”.

She declined to give exact details of the counter-offensive, saying Russian forcesin southern Ukraine remained “rather powerful”.

She added: “The counter-offensive is already ongoing for a while (in the sense of) exhausting the enemy and not giving him an opportunity to advance,” Ms Humeniuk told Suspilne, adding that the offensive phase of this had begun on Monday.”

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She added that “any military operation requires ‘silence’ regime”, urging Ukrainians to be patient.

She said: “Our main efforts have been focused on destroying the enemy’s ammunition storage bases. More than 10 of such bases were destroyed over the past week.”

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