A juvenile civilian has been praised as a “true hero of Ukraine” for using his drone to assist Ukraine’s armed forces in locating and destroying a massive Russian convoy bearing down on Kyiv in the early days of the war.
The military approached Andrii Pokrasa, a 15-year-old youngster from the Ukrainian capital’s outskirts, and asked him to assist them in finding the convoy, which was trundling down the E40 highway between Kyiv and Zhytomyr.
Authorities approached Pokrasa after learning that he had bought a consumer mini-drone last year and had become an expert pilot.
Pokrasa dutifully flew his drone into a nearby field in the dead of night, capturing photographs and GPS coordinates of the approaching convoy, which his father relayed to Ukrainian military via social media.
Ukrainian artillery showered down on the roadway at Berezivka minutes later, obliterating the convoy roughly 23 miles from Kyiv city center.
The strategy worked so well that the military gave the teenager control of a higher-grade drone with a longer range, which he used to kill several Russian tank formations and armored vehicles.
‘[Pokrasa] was the only one in that region who had experience with drones,’ said Yurii Kasjanov, the leader of a territorial defense unit that communicated with the young drone pilot.
‘He is a true hero. ‘A Ukrainian hero.’