The international delegation, headed by Ana Lucía Bueno, ICRC Public Health Coordinator, and Sujit Panda, Head of the Physical Rehabilitation…
“Dietrich” is from Poltava region, near Kremenchuk. From 2016 to 2019 he served as a door-gunner in the security battalion of the Army Aviation Brigade of the A
His story was published by the 13th Operational Brigade Khartia of the National Guard of Ukraine.
“For the first three months we were in the ATO. We lived in Kramatorsk and flew from there, guarded VIPs, a few times carried out evacuation missions. Then we moved to Dnipro, lived at the airport. We guarded it and had occasional flight missions”, — he recalls.
But due to certain circumstances, he left the army and worked as a lab technician at an agricultural firm.
On February 25, 2022, “Dietrich” went to the military enlistment office himself, but was told to wait a bit.
Then he joined the Territorial Defense Forces, served at a checkpoint near Kremenchuk, and was later called and told there was a place in one of the National Guard units.
At first he was the gunner of a ZU-23-2 in an air-defense unit that shoots down “Shaheds.” His older brother also served in the same brigade, but on a heavy bomber-drone.
“They created a separate FPV platoon and wanted to make anti-aircraft drones to shoot down Shaheds with FPV drones. But everything dragged on for a long time, and I wanted to fly. Khartia had vacancies for pilots, and in early July I transferred here — first as an FPV pilot, and now I fly a Vampire”, — he says.
In his opinion, the hardest part is understanding the drone’s technical characteristics: knowing how it behaves in the air, knowing all landmarks so that in a non-standard situation he can return the drone home in time.
His scariest moment happened last year:
“I went to the toilet outside during the day at the position, and right then an FPV drone hovered near the house. We thought it saw me going to the toilet, but it was jammed and fell behind the building without detonating”, — he said.
