-snip- The operation that the government said would confront pro-Russian militants in the east unraveled Wednesday with the entire contingent of 21 armored vehicles surrendering or retreating. -snip- One of the armored columns stopped when a crowd of people, many of whom were drinking or yelling taunts, gathered on the road before them. Later in the day its commander agreed to hand over the soldiers’ assault rifles to the very separatists they were sent to fight. Another column from the same unit, the 25th Dnipropetrovsk paratrooper brigade, surrendered not only its weapons but also the tracked and armored vehicles it...