![]() But after takeoff, adrenaline and determination take over. ![]() ROMAN: We do our best using the old munition, but we need new one because Russians use the same copters, and they have more.īEARDSLEY: Roman dreams of flying a U.S.-made Apache or a Blackhawk.īEARDSLEY: Forty-six-year-old pilot Vitaly says he's afraid before each mission. He says they're using unguided rockets, too, which means they have to get very close to their targets. It feels that like, yes, today is the day when I did something to bring the victory to make it closer to us.īEARDSLEY: That's Roman, 36. ROMAN: Oh, you always feel like - it's maybe not happiness but some kind of satisfaction. They're about to take off to go help in the battle of Bakhmut.īEARDSLEY: In an hour, they reappear over the horizon. ![]() (SOUNDBITE OF HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING)īEARDSLEY: The sun is now glinting off the windshield. The copters are painted with blue-and-yellow bug eyes and look like giant insects taking to the air. VITALI: We have seven flights - 16 helicopters go to Mariupol - but we lost only three.īEARDSLEY: Vitali won't provide more details on casualties.īEARDSLEY: After a three-hour delay to let the fog lift, visibility is essential. And they succeeded in flying undetected through Russian-occupied territory to deliver ammunition and evacuate the wounded from Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant last spring. But our pilots do it.īEARDSLEY: These helicopter units played a role in keeping Kyiv's Hostomel airfield from being taken in the beginning of the war. VITALI: They made a lot of missions that some pilots from abroad just tell that it's impossible. The pilots have many tricks to compensate for the lack of technology, he says, though he can't disclose them. Vitali says the pilots get around the lack of modern anti-aircraft early warning systems by flying low to avoid Russian radar. Today, they'll attack Russian forces along the eastern front in Donbas. We must do our work because we want to live in the free country, and we want to live like a free people.īEARDSLEY: These Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters were used by the Soviet army in Afghanistan. VITALI: Every mission, it's very dangerous, but we don't have another choice. Vitali, who's not allowed to give his last name, is spokesman for the 18th Army Aviation Brigade that flies these aging choppers. There are flares stacked in racks behind. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley met a helicopter brigade that remains an inspirational force in Ukraine's war effort, despite its old aircraft.ĮLEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: As dawn breaks in eastern Ukraine, three Soviet-era helicopters sit shrouded in fog on a potholed tarmac at an undisclosed location in the middle of black, plowed fields.īEARDSLEY: A crew does last-minute checks on launcher pods loaded with dozens of slim, gray rockets. Some have arrived, but often, forces have to make do with Soviet-era equipment. Since war began, Ukraine has asked for modern weapons from the West.
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