On the day when it was possible to shoot down a Russian drone, recalls a serviceman of the TRO with the call sign “Did”, he came out of the dugout around 10 p.m. and heard the characteristic sound of an enemy drone:
“I saw it, it was coming straight at me. It was maybe 150 meters away from me, it was approaching above me. I took a flashlight and opened fire. There was no time for singles to switch. It flies fast. He flies 40 meters in about a second.”
It was possible to hit the Russian Shahed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, “Did” reports. That night, the serviceman says, the Russians launched 26 drones, shot down 21 of them, and the 21st was just the one he managed to shoot down with his own hands.
“After it hid behind the horizon, it stopped rattling so lively, sparks fell from it, the engine began to stall in it and … it became completely silent. Well, six seconds later, an explosion rang out.”
According to the soldier, at that moment he was not thinking about his safety, only about the target that had to be destroyed.
For the shooting down of the Shahed, “Grandfather” received the “Cross of the Brave” medal from the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny.
The man says that he went to fight at the age of 57. In civilian life, he was an electromechanic, since the beginning of the great war – a signalman, now – a rifleman of the Zaporozhye Territorial Defense.
“On the 24th, I finished my shift, came home. I met my neighbour and best man, we sat down. By the way, the best man is 65. Well, on the 25th, we were already in the unit at 8 o’clock in the morning. Well, that’s all, then there was the war “, says the serviceman.
“Grandfather” says that the most difficult thing was at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, because there was no electricity, water and communication. However, they independently arranged their life, built a bathhouse with their own hands.
“There were days when in a position that I have no right to leave alone, there are no boys, no one comes to wash, there is no communication, there is no light, there is nothing. And the horizon is burning in front. The whole night. It was the scariest thing when you you don’t know. And when the next day, the guys come dirty, ragged to wash. I say: “What’s wrong?”. “4.5.0” – he says,” – “ Grandfather” tells.
The fighter’s native village was the first to be liberated together with his comrades:
“The first village we recaptured from the Orks was Poltavka, where I was born. And there I met my childhood friends. Everyone left, crying.”
The military man says that they will fight to return the borders of 1991, and after victory, he dreams of going to Crimea with his family.
Source: Zaporizhzhia Public