Videos and communication campaigns from Kyiv are very useful. The Ukrainian army announced this Saturday that it had shot down a Russian Mi-8 helicopter on Russian territory for the first time using an FP-1 long-range attack drone.
The video of the attack was released by the Special Operations Forces (SOF) on the official Telegram account. We can see, from the camera on the drone, the device approaching behind the Russian helicopter moments before the collision.
“Poor man’s cruise missile”
“We are changing the situation: from now on, we are the hunters! For the first time, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in mid-flight by an attacking drone,” representatives of the special operations forces wrote in the statement. The attack took place near the village of Kuteynikovo, in Russia’s Rostov region, about 190 km from the front line.
This is not the first time a Russian helicopter has been hit by a drone while flying. In August 2024, a kamikaze FPV drone damaged a Russian Mi-28 attack helicopter. But this is the first time Kiev has attacked Russian territory with a long-range attack drone the size of a “simple” helicopter.
The FP-1 drone used in this case is generally used to reach sensitive locations such as oil installations or military locations. Two-thirds of attacks in deep Russia are carried out via the FP-1 according to the manufacturer.
At 6 m long, the device, produced by the Fire Point company like the Flamingo missile, is the Ukrainian equivalent of Russia’s Shahed. It can carry several tens of kilos of explosives for a range of 1,400 km. All for less than 50,000 euros per unit. A kind of “poor man’s cruise missile”, according to Le Monde.
