- A territorial defence unit contacted drone pilot Andrii Pokrasa early in the war
- They knew the teenager was a highly skilled drone operator living near Kyiv
- He used his mini drone to locate a Russian convoy headed for the capital
- The Ukrainian army destroyed the convoy near Berezivka, 23 miles from Kyiv
- Pokrasa was hailed as a hero by the territorial defence unit’s commander and given a high-end drone which he used to help destroy many more of Putin’s tanks
By DAVID AVERRE FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 11:44 EDT, 7 June 2022 | UPDATED: 14:07 EDT, 7 June 2022
A teenage civilian who used his drone to help Ukraine‘s armed forces locate and destroy a huge Russian convoy bearing down on Kyiv in the early days of the war has been hailed as a ‘real hero of Ukraine’.
Andrii Pokrasa, a 15-year-old boy who lives on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, was approached directly by the military to help them find the convoy, which was trundling along the E40 highway between Kyiv and Zhytomyr.
Authorities approached Pokrasa as they knew he had purchased a consumer mini-drone last year and became a highly proficient pilot, Global News reported.
Pokrasa duly took his drone into a nearby field under cover of darkness and successfully obtained photos and GPS co-ordinates of the oncoming convoy, which his father forwarded onto Ukrainian military via social media.
Minutes later, Ukrainian artillery rained down on the highway near Berezivka and obliterated the convoy roughly 23 miles away from Kyiv city centre.
The approach was so successful that the military handed the teenager the controls of a high-grade drone with a longer range and went on to destroy several Russian tank units and armoured vehicles as a result.
‘[Pokrasa] was the only one who was experienced with drones in that region,’ Yurii Kasjanov, the commander of a territorial defence unit that liased with the teenage drone pilot, said.
‘He’s a real hero. A hero of Ukraine.’
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