The pilot of the Russian Mi-8, which was transported to Ukraine as part of the special operation “Sinitsa”, told the details of how everything happened.
“On the ninth, the flight took place. I had an official application for departure. That is, I didn’t just steal a helicopter, I officially moved it from point A to point B,” he said.
According to the pilot, the route was agreed upon in advance.
“At 16.30 I took off. I took off from the Kursk airfield in the Kharkov region. About 20 km. Then, somewhere in the area of the village of Shebekino, I flew at an extremely low altitude of 5-10 meters in radio silence mode,” said Kuzminov details.
When crossing the border, he said, they started firing at the helicopter.
“I can’t say for sure who was driving it, but I assume it was the Russian side. I was wounded in the leg by small arms fire. I flew 20 km and landed. After landing, there were two crew members with me. We didn’t have any weapons with us.” “It happened, no one resisted me. I reassured the guys (crew members – ed.) that they were good people, everything was fine. But they began to be afraid and behave aggressively. They ran out of the helicopter, their further fate is unknown to me,” he clarified .
Consequences of the special operation for Russia
According to Andrey Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, this operation “will have lasting consequences” for the aggressor state and the moral and psychological state of the occupiers.
“And for the security sector of the Russian Federation. Because as a result of this operation, it was possible to obtain extremely important information about enemy aircraft, about many other details that will help defend the sky and destroy the enemy,” he said at a press conference.
He noted that this special operation has no analogues in Ukraine yet.
“In world history, we can give examples of how certain pilots, for various reasons, transferred their aircraft to the other side. But in this situation, we are talking about a certain phase of hostilities, a full-scale war,” the intelligence officer added.
Yusov added that this is “just the beginning” and “there will be more to come.”
Special Operation “Tit”
On August 23, information appeared online about the landing of a Russian Mi-8 helicopter in Ukraine. Commentators offered different versions. One of the most popular is that the pilots allegedly lost their bearings.
But it soon became known that this was a unique operation of Ukrainian intelligence with the participation of representatives of other defense forces.
It recently became known that the “hijacked” helicopter will soon go on combat duty as part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Source : RBC
