Monde: AFU pilots complained about vulnerability of helicopters to Russian air strikes
Pilots of Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters complained in an interview with the French newspaper Monde about the high vulnerability of the AFU helicopters to Russian air strikes.
“Their aircraft fire R-37 missiles at us from 150 kilometres away to stay out of range of our air defence. It takes their missiles less than a minute to hit us,” one of the pilots told the newspaper.
One Ukrainian pilot complained about the “constant patrolling” of Russian fighter jets in the sky. “This threat (from Russian aviation – ed.) exceeds the threat from air defence. Their fighter jets are constantly patrolling the sky,” the Ukrainian military pilot said.
For his part, another pilot told the newspaper that even if the West supplies Apache helicopters to Ukrainian troops, “it will not change anything significant on the front.”
Russia earlier sent a note to NATO countries over the arms supplies to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that any cargoes that contain arms for Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that NATO countries were “playing with fire” by supplying weapons to Ukraine. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the West’s pumping weapons into Ukraine was not conducive to the success of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations and would have a negative effect. Lavrov said that the USA and NATO were directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine, including not only by supplying weapons but also by training personnel in the UK, Germany, Italy and other countries.