A 15-year-old is considered a “hero” in Ukraine after he used his own drone to help the country’s armed forces locate and destroy a Russian convoy en route to Kiev at the start of the war that began in late February. Andrii Pokrasa managed to obtain photos and coordinates of the invaders, data that his father transmitted to the Ukrainian army.
According to the Canadian Global News website, officials hired Pokrasa because they knew he was buying the equipment and he was the only person in the area who knew how to fly it. He helped locate the invaders on a highway between Kyiv and Zhytomyr.
The success of the mission prompted the Ukrainian military to give the teenager controls of a quality drone with a wider range so he could continue to support the armed forces.
“[Pokrasa] he was the only person in that area with experience with drones,” said Yurii Kasjanov, commander of a ground defense unit. “He is a true hero. A hero of Ukraine.”
According to Global News, the teenager said the experience was “very frightening” and said he was aware of the risks, but wanted to prevent Russian forces from attacking his unnamed hometown for security reasons.
“They gave us information on where the Russians might be. about. “Our goal was to find the exact coordinates and give them to the soldiers,” he said.
Despite being successful, the young man said he had mixed feelings about the operation. “I was happy but at the same time [pensava] It was the people there. They were occupiers, but whatever, they were people too,” he said.
Pokrasa bought the first mini drone using the money he earned from his father in the cryptocurrency market. He began to pilot every day, gained skill in equipment. When the Russians invaded the country, he initially stayed at home with his family, but a few days later he was asked to assist the military as he was the only person in the area with a drone.
Pokrasa’s mother, Iryna, said she was worried that her husband had started taking her son at night to “search for Russian soldiers”. After the episode, she took him to Poland to finish the school year.
Drones are gaining traction in Ukraine’s defense policy. Some, like the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB-2, have helped the Ukrainians inflict heavy losses on Russian units since the beginning of the war.
According to Taras Troiak, a former drone retailer who leads the Ukrainian Federation of Drone Owners, about 1,000 civilians participated in the task of locating invading troops using the equipment. He created a Facebook group to encourage more drone pilots to join the task force.
“I think that if we didn’t have these operators and drones that could assist the Ukrainian army, Kiev might have already been occupied by Russian forces,” he told Global News.
source: Noticias
[author_name]
