At the same time, the drone they tried to shoot down still flew.

In Russia, during an anti-drone mission, its own mobile air defense group shot down a Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter, Forbes reports .

The helicopter was hunting Ukrainian drones when it was fired upon by a ground-based mobile air defense group engaged in the same mission. According to available data, this is not the first such incident, but one of the most “costly” in terms of consequences.

The backbone of the Ukrainian strikes are AN-196 “Fever” and Fire Point FP-1 drones, slow-moving vehicles that fly at speeds of up to 120 miles per hour. According to the report, they evade powerful Russian missile defenses by flying at low altitudes, which at the same time makes them easy targets for other means of attack, including helicopters.

That is why Russia, following the example of Ukraine, has deployed mobile groups of volunteers who travel to potential drone attack points. In this case, according to the source, the BARS unit (the country’s Combat Army Reserve) was armed with the 9K333 “Verba” MANPADS – a modern complex with a triple homing head that tracks the target in the ultraviolet, near-infrared and mid-infrared ranges. The range of the attack is over three miles, the warhead weighs about three kilograms.

According to the publication, the pay of fighters in mobile air defense groups is extremely low – about $133 per week, plus a $200 bonus for each drone shot down, although fighters often complain that bonuses are not paid to them. According to the author of the article, this is what pushes fighters to shoot without carefully checking the target.

Both members of the helicopter crew ejected. One of them, as noted, died instantly due to a failure of the ejection system, the second managed to be evacuated alive. Western helicopters, unlike the Ka-52, are not equipped with catapults – due to the difficulty of taking off from under rotating propellers and the belief that a controlled landing is safer.

Russia’s losses from the incident: one crew member, a missile worth $170,000, and a helicopter worth $16 million – and yet the drone they tried to shoot down still flew.

It is noted that since the start of the full-scale war, Russian air defense has already shot down at least seven of its own helicopters, in several cases while pursuing drones. At the beginning of the war, Russia had about 90 Ka-52s, but currently about half of them remain combat-ready.

They are killing their own

Earlier, in the Rostov region near the Millerovo military airfield, the Russian air defense probably shot down its own military helicopter while repelling a massive attack by Ukrainian drones. This was reported by Russian military bloggers and Telegram channels related to aviation. According to available information, the entire crew of the helicopter was killed. There was no official confirmation of this information at the time – the governor of the Rostov region only acknowledged the fact of the UAV attack.

The occupiers also  shot down their own Su-30SM fighter jet over the temporarily occupied Crimea . This was stated by the spokesman for the Ukrainian Navy, Dmytro Pletenchuk. According to him, the attack by Ukrainian drones was repelled so actively that they eventually shot down their own aircraft.

(C)UNIAN 2026