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Ukrainian soldiers have intercepted and landed a Mavic quadcopter launched from the Russian side. Alexander Sladkov, a Russian military correspondent working for state-owned media company VGTRK, published footage of the “hijacking” on his Telegram channel. According to him, the drone was intercepted by the AFU's electronic warfare experts. In the video, he watches the hijacked quadcopter fly away.
“We're on the Donetsk front line, having a good day, filmed some interesting stories for [the weekly news digest] Vesti Nedeli. Even though electronic warfare troops of the AFU have hijacked our drone, there’s no need to be sad. An experience of aerial combat that involves electronics is also useful. They won’t trick us so easily next time around! We’ve learned our lesson,” Sladkov wrote.
Because of the interception, the entire crew had to leave their location, as the drone could reveal their coordinates.
Apart from Sladkov, the video features a known neo-Nazi Alexei “Fritz” Milchakov, the commander of the Rusich storming and reconnaissance group. He also waged war in Syria as part of the Wagner PMC and in Donbas alongside the so-called LPR fighters.
Milchakov became infamous in 2011, after posting photos of a puppy’s chopped-off head on his page on social media. It was his way of inciting racially motivated killings. During the war in Donbas, he cut off the ears of killed Ukrainian soldiers and knifed the Kolovrat symbol – an eight-rayon swastika used by Russian neo-Nazis – on their faces. He also made selfies with burned bodies of Ukrainians in the background, shared them online, and confessed that he enjoyed the smell of burned human flesh.