The date was chosen in memory of military correspondent Dmytro Labutkin, who died on this day during hostilities in eastern…
Denys is 26. Before the full-scale invasion, he worked in district heating at critical infrastructure facilities. Today, he protects those facilities.
His story was published on the page of the Lviv Air Defense Missile Brigade named after Ivan Vyhovsky of the Air Force’s Western Command.
Denys is deputy battery commander for armaments. He is responsible for the combat readiness of several Gepard and Cheetah self-propelled anti-aircraft systems. He ensures the technical condition of the vehicles that go on combat duty every night.
He also commands one of the Cheetah crews. His team has just completed training and is already well prepared for combat.
A Cheetah commander, Denys says, is not just a leader. He must know the vehicle and be able to replace the gunner, operator, or mechanic at any moment.
“I can’t say: go do it if I don’t know how to do it myself”, — he explains.
In battle everything changes instantly: the target may disappear, lock-on may break, a threat may appear from another direction. Then the commander takes control, and the crew works without unnecessary words — like a single mechanism.
One of the crews Denys was responsible for destroyed several enemy drones in a single night.
“I repaired that equipment too”, — he says calmly.
Sometimes repairs take two days, and the cause may be something small — a broken wire. But finding it among kilometers of wiring is a challenge, he says.
An air-defense battle has no set duration: it can last minutes or all night. It is especially difficult during massive Shahed attacks when priorities must be determined instantly.
Cheetah can operate even in fog — two radars allow it to track targets in difficult weather conditions.
Denys knows well: if the vehicle isn’t repaired, it won’t go on duty and won’t shoot down targets.
“When the crew returns after a night of work and the system performed flawlessly — that’s a small victory. The machine worked. The guys are incredible”, — he says.
The hardest part, Denys admits, is the waiting. But once the battle begins, everything works automatically. And then it becomes clear: the machine, the crew, and the commander are all in their rightful places, with one goal — to win the air-defense battle.
