if there are wounded, we take the wounded. if we need to hit a target to get our guys on the ground going, we hit this one. if our troops, we see, are under attack, and we are given a task, we must cover, we must help the boys. we perform this task. if we need to roll over. the troops from one point to another, there are not even any thoughts, where, what, for what, gathered at once, completed the task. there may be tasks. to be the most diverse,

indeed, as our slogan, we are where you are needed, where you can use a helicopter, where we can be useful in terms of the task, we will be there, of course and without objection, since school yes, i studied on the mi-8, and to this day i fly the mi-8, this is my only constant type, the swallow, of course. our swallow, when you come there in the morning, or when you have a task, you must come, stroke his tail, talk to him, you know, that feeling, as they say, iron has no soul, no, it does, for me, for example, he is alive, er, you can talk to him, after the flight, say thank you, thank you to the crew, thank you to the machine, for being there for you... no matter how difficult the situation was,

it pulled you out when you are performing a combat mission, when conditions force you into such circumstances that you have to say about yourself, well, little one, well be patient, well, it must be done, it carries you, it pulls you, i am definitely in love with this technique, i love it, but it is necessary to change, it is an mi-24, now i am... sitting in the seat of the helicopter commander, that is, that is all is happening here, the pilot is flying this helicopter as a crew chief, the pilot-operator is sitting in the front, she's very maneuverable, uh, more maneuverable than the mi 8, well, since i was a child, i liked technology, aviation technology, it’s mine, i probably can’t do without it, first of all, take off, it was back

when we had ato, that is, i was still there performing my first combat sortie, well, as an operator pilot from this place, on a mi-24 helicopter, well, somehow it was scary, well, they fulfilled their combat mission. meet ivan, the pride of our 11th separate army aviation brigade, kherson.

this is my brother, the fighting, famous, viking. my friend is very humble person and this is the person which made flights with yevgeny solovyov, a very famous hero-of-ukraine pilot , to occupied azovstal and to the island of snakes. since the beginning of the war, we have been there , well, we have not seen each other at all, for about a year and a half we have not seen each other as friends at all, he works by himself somewhere near kyiv, i work there on the zaporizhzhia assignment, and we are generally like that. and i flew, he flies somewhere,

he flies, i fly somewhere, i became a pilot by accident, and i never had a love for aviation, because i was never interested in aviation, i always dreamed of becoming a paratrooper, a scout, but it so happened that i stayed in kharkov with the girl's visa, because she did not want to go with me to study in lviv, and they offered to enroll in such a specialization as a helicopter pilot, i immediately dreamed and thought that it must be a helicopter very cool, cool, it flies, but at that time i did not know at all what the mi-8, 24 is and how to distinguish them, and therefore the dream comes with time. thank you ex. so. we work on mi-24, mi-8 and mi-17 helicopters. mi-24, mi-8, mi-17 are currently performing

the main tasks are the same, this is the task of defeating the enemy at the front of the front and supporting our own. which protect us on the front line, well, in general, the mi-8-mi-17 still performs such tasks as the delivery of the landing force to various places, transportation and evacuation of the wounded, the very first combat sortie near kiev, my mouth fell open then, when we i was playing, i just didn’t know what was happening to me, what it was, i was young there, only three... months ago i graduated, there was a war, it was chaos and at the beginning we, well, the group in which i was , we transported some such specific cargo, on

different routes, at different points, eh, well, it was there for a couple of weeks, maybe a week and a half, and then we already worked near kyiv. directly to defeat, mainly columns, columns of equipment , gatherings of troops, they were already more or less bought up and it was necessary to knock them out, it was makarov, motyzhyn, where they were sitting on the other side of the zhytomyr highway, we have no information about the enemy, we were flying towards makarov, came under fire, another rocket was fired at us, besides... what was fired upon, they flew in, punched the hydraulic tank, brought 12 or 14 holes there, one bullet went there, one in the gps, and the third came here, this is what the operator has, then all over the helicopter, this,

this, this helicopter was repaired, and currently performing fire damage combat missions. the enemy then, well, at the beginning of the war , the tasks were set very quickly, you were simply told, you need to hit such and such coordinates, my friend, he was on the remote board, i was on the known board, and my friend says, i will go on board there, something there i'll take a jacket or something there, okay, go, go, and here a car flies by quickly, that's it, come on, guys, the task is on the coordinates, everything, everything, everything, everything, here igor is just running away from him. nejeletom with his gun is running, pulling everything on himself, our helicopter is already launched, this friend of mine is running damn near the helicopter, i run out to him on the map, show him here and there , he says ok, drop the coordinates, i say ok and we just take off and already in the air, we were basically preparing before the flight, it was imprinted for the rest of my life, it

was the beginning of a full-scale invasion, it was the kiev operations, because there was a lot it was as unclear as possible and... but i was clinging to every moment with my feet in order to do something and survive and do it in the future, they did ordinary work, somewhere they shot, somewhere something, somewhere they transported someone, but at that time it was very risky, because they tried to us to shoot down not only enemy air defense, but also our troops did not distinguish us much. with the aircraft of our enemy, and every stunt was so exciting and epic in the sense that when you sat down after the flight to the ground, you think, well, i’m back, so i’ll have a little more food, and this at that time it was very cool, every day

there were attempts from the beginning of the occupation of mariupol, every day from the first official departure. which was successful, every day, every next day there were flights there, some succeeded, some did not, everyone was scared, no, well, whoever says that... he is not scared, he is either lying or stupid, everyone is scared , everyone is just doing their job, because they have to. they perceived this task as with a cold mind, that we knew that it had to be carried out, we directly brought help there, the group was landed on azovstali, a plus to the fact that there was a group, we were still transporting enlaves, on the way back we were picked up directly... this flight is like an equation in which there are many unknowns, and if

everything is correctly substituted, then it can be solved when we have already performed these flights , it was the end of april, at that time almost no one even managed to cross the combat line, at that time it was 150 km to mariupol, we had to fly over the territory of the enemy, well, the territory occupied by the enemy, we crossed. passed half of the way, about 70 km, and got under strong shelling and miraculously survived that shelling , all i remember is that i'm sitting with the gps there gps horizon there i'm turning gps horizon i'm turning back and here just such fireworks start, the queues are from there , there is a crack from machine guns, here the arrows are screaming, the rocket and we... we all go to the ground and begin to perform an anti-missile maneuver , turn around, then everyone just got out of the helicopters,

hugged each other, said, we survived, we were the first to try to get there, we tried, we went in with two sides, we were fired upon and had to return , some time has passed, we found out that the first walker passed, then the second walker to the marik, then the third, fourth, and that two helicopters went there and... the second walker directly performed flights as a guide, the task is always performed by two helicopters, there is a guide who goes first and there is a leader who follows him, and this is one combat unit. i was loaded with about eight seriously wounded lying down, then we brought them all directly to them, i hope, i don’t know what their future fate was, well, i really hope that they were provided with qualified medical care help and... and i think that the guys are all alive and well right now and maybe some of them will continue to carry out

their tasks, but we suffered losses during this operation, one of our crew did not return, you knew those guys, you knew it very well, we they flew about 40 km over there, i don't know, or how much, then they returned lower, that is, we could have destroyed us. literally, the problem was simply that we were flying at night and wearing glasses, we got a task for the fifth flight there, we had four helicopters, the host the famous hero of ukraine, yevhenii solov'ov, i am his navigator, and we flew, there was two hours of preparation, two hours were time to rest, but you are not there. you can rest, because these thoughts, i don’t know, you remember

, even a little goosebumps, i didn’t even know who to text there, i understand what kind of task it is, but it turned out that my relatives from raisin, and they were under occupation, i could not write anything to them, because all the phones were... deleted just in case, got up, went to the helicopters, i was already standing near the helicopters, well, there were already helicopters were loaded, and the guys were already waiting, and what surprised me, touched me, i wrote it down , and one of the moments that i remembered these guys, they were so motivated, i had some fear, i understand where i'm going , and i asked one there... guys, do you understand where we are going, because i feel a little bit like that, i say,

it's scary, but we understand, i say, well, you understand that we will fly there, you still need to go there to reach, and there, for sure, it will be the beginning, and here, to fly over, it’s something else, but on the approach we can be shot down, you understand, yes we understand, but they have such a strong motivation, i don't know why people are so motivated. even, probably, i don't have such motivation , the helicopter started to launch, the fear passed, the work began, i got ready for work. and we flew in four helicopters to mariupol, we arrived, sat down in mariupol near the port, and there the unloading began, it seemed to me that i did not know, we were already standing there for half an hour, in fact we were standing there for about 12 minutes, from the moment when sat down, loading,

unloading, everything was done quickly, unloaded cargo , the bohdanchyk bus drove up with no windows at all and i looked , it drove up on the right side, its doors open to the right side, and from there there are people there, i don't know who, they were carrying one or two people there , and there were 20 wounded people there we took with us from these 20 wounded people there without arms, without legs , we were the first to go and left, and after us two minutes later another third, fourth, second couple took off, and we went home and somewhere around four or three minutes after takeoff ,

they heard a sound, something slammed into the side shock. we were hit, the engine turned off, we were going on one engine, then , as the specialists said, it was a missile hit, the missile flew in, did not detonate and flew away, we took 20 people, one engine, if we sit down, we will not be able to take off, but it's literally three minutes from mariupol, it's unreal, we understand that we have to go further, i'll take it. alive, there was hope, of course, that there might be communication, maybe something else, some technical problems, we waited until the last moment, we were the first to arrive at the airfield, landing, and waited for all the other helicopters, we can see the measures there

one, step two, and there is no third, only two were counted. and we, and we understood that something happened, and well, there were some hopes, maybe they fell, it is clear that something happened, maybe they are alive, but then, when the information spread, then only there was hurovyts, during those walks, too , the planes were shot down, it was my friend personally, he died in one of the... east, we are from the same, we started flying with him, from the 24th, and there were also guys from our squadron with him, that plane just did not fly back when we arrived, there we have already sat down, the engines are turned off, the propellers are still

spinning there, and we are relaxing there. there was a moment when they left the cabin and the door was still closed, and the guys look at this, let's not forget that, actually, and they all go to you like this, guys, thank you, thank you, ah, we are so little more in shock, they hadn't left yet, but the guys there saw more than we did, and you can't express it in... words, what it was, and one guy, he's completely armless, and he has only one left hand, and he pulls his left hand to me, i'm just there with a bleeding heart it was pouring, i think, and he looks at me like that, says thank you, guys, i thank you that you went through this, that you endured,

that you stayed alive, these are heroes for me, this was our seventh, seventh hut. there was a task , and we came under enemy fire halfway, we crossed the demarcation line and already in enemy territory, we were wearing night vision goggles, well, two sides entered the group, then, well, i don’t know what we ran into, because it was so dense there shelling, at first it was like, well, i raised my glasses so... something red, so dense, well , it seems that it was some kind of, or was a psylka or something, well, something like that, because the rate of fire was very so and so... the accuracy is great, and then when we realized that it wouldn't work, first of all, they had already been notified that we were going, and first of all, secondly,

the task was already that no one there at all, well, so that not a single fly would slip by, er, when we turned to the left, i, when we, we, i don't know, we turned so very fast. and on the left i saw two rockets coming out, and i don't know where they are going fired these heat traps and they went up, well, after that, mariupol was closed. snake island, if you compare this task, marik and snake island, i don't know what was scarier, snake island,

it was long, long preparation, they prepared more carefully for it, everything did not work out immediately, this time there to complete this task, she very long, it lasted for about a month. and you get up every day, so maybe today it didn't work out, i'm somehow getting ready again, and we got up every day, were preparing, they fought back there for some reason, then some air defenses appeared on the snake island, then some other problems there, the enemy's aviation is working, and that's what they thought, it would be faster to complete this task, our task was to land an amphibious assault special forces to snake island, here... and to cover them from the air as much as possible, let's say , it was, the first time, as i say, we didn't quite manage everything, because of the enemy fighters who

dominated the sky at that time, we had to leave, we had three walks, the first time we let's go, again, as always, sergeyovich, my commander, we are the first to go, well, everything is fine. we always come to a sharp change, there are 9 km left somewhere, ah, and there we start aiming there, already there we are preparing for a strike and our mission is canceled, we were turned back because there was a wasp there, this is air defense, so we flew away and behind us two bulbs, so boom-boom , something was working for you, i don't know what it is, i won't guess, it's something like that... they said that air defense appeared there and our fighter aircraft started working there and they beat us back. the second attempt was there sometime after sunday, probably, because that's why we

were constantly there in a tizzy all this time, our task was to go unload the landing party, and take that landing party away, we flew in the second group, landed the landing party, and that's where it started. there is action, because on the approach , some new things have already started to work on us, i mean, there are explosions on the water, well , you can see that a foot of water is rising there above the helicopter, well, i don’t know what it was, guys, the link of a pair of mi-24 struck, we went after them, landed a landing party, there is a small navel, well, if you don't know, you saw what it is. in that he in general, it is very small there, 800 by 800 meters, there is nowhere to hide, and here two helicopters come in, the landing party lands here

, well, we just sit there , there are some ruins, some houses are destroyed, we sit there, the landing party is unloading something like that, damn it, and the helicopter was pumped up, so what takoy, then, we sit , takoy, dream, the same clothes, takyak, chmek got up, i think, takoy, serge, and what is that? turned back, then found out that we had losses, my 14th, which, roughly speaking, covered us and was a repeater, so it turned out, that we all returned, completed the task, they did not return, the enemy attacked them. to exterminate and shoot them down like that, it is very hard and painful to remember, she will remain with us these losses forever, i will never forget. those

feelings, all of us in the crew must have felt the same when the tasks were completed, when we were already returning, we had already seen the land, you know, some kind of slightly elevated mood, the mood of what we had accomplished, and you know, well, we did it and exhaled yes, there appeared some, you know, not a smile, but a... smile, it turned out, it's unreal the words to completely forget my crew, well , it has become so familiar to me that i don’t know what words to explain it, 90 percent of the tasks that i have done in combat sorties that i have performed are precisely fire damage , manpower and equipment of the enemy, equipment , mortar calculations, fuel tanks, how

they explode... there is the assembly point of the orcs, just where they were going to rest, it turns out, we had a target, it was in my opinion the direction of kharkiv, i was on a new helicopter, still here my first, first combat combats were in the current war, and yes it turned out that i missed the target a little and ended up right at the assembly point where they gathered, rested, ate, they were poured right there, by the way, it was exactly 12... 12:30 for their lunch, the 23rd or on the 22nd, i was still in our free mariupol, we brought the necessary military personnel there, let’s say so, and transported the rest of the citizens, and literally flew through the early hours of the morning, 5:00 a.m., 4:50 a.m. i started in what was at that time still free melitopol were on combat duty, and

it started at 5 am. very fun at the airport began to arrive, there was nothing left to do, as it was necessary to immediately take away the personnel and equipment, together with a group of other pilots, they took away the people, everyone who remained there, and carried out the withdrawal of the equipment from under the attack, for several days we were forced as it was the worst confusion, and for several days they hid wherever they could, i 'll tell you this... forests and fields and swamps, everything just to preserve the equipment, and somewhere on the fifth or sixth day, active combat operations began, that is, classes it just happened that someone somewhere saw something, the enemy is coming from there, the enemy is from there, the coordinates were given, and we went on a free hunt in groups of helicopters in twos, threes, fours, as many as there were at that time, inactive, immediately rose into the air, fully charged and looked

for these ko... well, we saw the column, destroyed the column, then there is such a thing, the direction of work was from zaporizhzhia, starting to donetsk, if you take this and that sector back and forth, two or three huts, because it was all difficult, we hid our cars, told where we needed fuel, there the car was leaving, we were making our way there with all the fuel we had completely limited, that's what we took together. then we had, well, tsukhpai, which were placed on helicopters, that’s the maximum we had, they lived directly in the helicopters themselves, took shelter in the same way that was in the cars themselves, that is, that’s all, bk we had our ammunition, we loaded it on a barge, we carried people with us, it was like this for three days of hard work, we saved all the machines we had, took them out, and they are still carrying out combat operations tasks, closer to the raisin, say, worked permanently

to apply to say that it was some kind of operation, there was a grand one, no, it was a combined military battle in which ours held positions, and it was necessary to support the infantry, therefore constantly every day two or three, this minimum walk had to be done in order to carry out an air strike enemy, we had a case when we were working in the kupyan direction, during the flight to the area of ​​hostilities, we were constantly met by a girl who, at any time of the day, she... walked, waved at us, and it was very nice, and on one of those flights, when we were already returning, we are for her they dropped off a small gift, packed candies, and i think it was very nice for her, and for us too, we are working now, the main direction is the bakhmut district, right and left, that's all that we get, everywhere we try to destroy.