The Ukraine War Just Keeps Getting Wilder: Video footage shared on Twitter on Monday shows just how low Ukrainian pilots are willing to fly to avoid being spotted by Russian forces. The video, recorded by a pilot or crewmate on board the helicopter, shows the helicopter flying mere inches away from the ground over an agricultural field.
??Mi-8 low pass pic.twitter.com/JsSucokRy9
— MilitaryAviationInUa (@Ukraine_AF) September 4, 2022
An attached rocket launcher can be seen grazing the top of the crops.
Similar footage was also shared back in April, recorded by a crewmate who turns the camera to show his face at the end of the clip. The video shows a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter fitted with GUV-8700 gunpods flying low to the ground in eastern Ukraine.
In July, a video also showed two Mi-8 helicopters flying only feet away from the top of a wheat crop. The video was recorded from the ground and showed Ukrainians giving the thumbs up to the pilots as they passed.
In Mariupol, video footage showed Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters flying as close to the ground as they could without hitting residential buildings as they pass by.
“Normal” to Fly Low in Ukraine War
In an interview on the Zapiski Pilota YouTube channel, a popular channel hosted by pilot Vladimir Vasilyev, a Ukrainian fighter pilot known as Yevgeny described a daring rescue flight performed in an Mi-8 helicopter earlier in the Ukraine conflict.
The pilot revealed how the Ukrainian military performed a number of military resupply flights in Mariupol, carrying medical supplies and ammunition. The pilots reportedly also reportedly carried away injured Ukrainian military personnel. Little was known about the flights, other than the fact that not all of them were successful, before the Ukrainian pilot offered some more details during the YouTube interview.
Yevgeny described how it is entirely normal for the helicopters to fly at low altitudes, a trick designed to make it harder for Russian radars to identify and locate the aircraft.
“Flying at treetops is normal. The cases when we climb to [the altitude of] 30 or so meters are the scariest,” Yevgeny said. “Me and my mate, who recently started flying as my wingman, we have a saying about that ‘to stir some reeds’. So, it is normal to touch the grass or the treetops with the front wheel while flying.”
This latest video, however, shows how Ukrainian pilots are being forced to perform even riskier maneuvers, getting as low to the ground as they possibly can.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
