MOSCOW, May 30. /TASS/. Attack helicopters of Russia’s Battlegroup North thwarted the Ukrainian army’s attempt to regroup forces in the Kharkov area, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Thursday.
"An army aviation strike group of the Aerospace Forces consisting of a Ka-52M Alligator reconnaissance/attack helicopter, a Mi-35M transport/combat helicopter and a Mi-8 multirole helicopter successfully disrupted the rotation of Ukrainian troops within the area of operation of the Battlegroup North," the ministry said in a statement.
In their sortie, the helicopter crews delivered a strike by S-8 aviation rockets using coordinates of an air controller. After that, the crews conducted a missile evasion maneuver, using an onboard defensive aids system and returned to their airfield, it said.
"We received an assignment at the command post. We prepared and set off to the area of the combat objective, following terrain features at an extremely low altitude. We entered the combat flight path and struck the enemy with rocket armament. According to the air controller’s report, the target was successfully destroyed. We returned to our airfield," the Mi-35M helicopter navigator said about the sortie in a video uploaded by Russia’s Defense Ministry.