Strana 30
after such an incident are slim, they kept their
word. We later saw them at an operational air-
field," Mykhailo recounted.
In the early weeks of the war, he primarily
focused on these types of missions—rescuing
pilots, evacuating the wounded, and trans-
port flights. Later in the spring, Air Force he-
licopter pilots joined ground attack operations,
and Mykhailo fired his weapons for the first time.
The attacks involved launching unguided roc-
kets in a ballistic arc, similar to a flying rocket
launcher. "During my first combat flight, I was
trained by Vitaliy Pliak from the Army Aviati-
on. He was a funny guy, covered in tattoos, and
constantly joked with me. Unfortunately, he is
no longer with us. We did an excellent job and
destroyed a mortar battery near Dovhenke.
I couldn't keep up with him. He had an Mi-8MT
with some 'hypersonic speed,' while I had a slo-
wer Mi-8MSB," Mykhailo recalled his first live
combat mission.
That first day, he flew again, and the next
day, he flew three more sorties. Firing unguided
rockets required great accuracy—finding the
right angle and pressing the trigger at the per-
fect moment. "Carnage" openly admitted that
his accuracy was lacking at first. Sometimes,
however, he missed the intended target but hit
another, even more valuable one. He and other
pilots trained in this tactics while flying the
combat missions. In the first two weeks alone,
he completed 21 flights.
A major motivation to improve accuracy was
the risk of being shot down. If they flew a com-
bat mission but missed the target, they had to
return and attempt the attack again—putting
themselves at risk once more.
Mykhailo also recalled how he "gifted" his
100th rocket launch to his navigator. He set eve-
rything up, aimed, and let his navigator press
the trigger in a symbolic moment. He also re-
membered the Kharkiv campaign, during which
he fought for the liberation of his hometown,
Izium. At that time, they would strike a target,
return to base, and receive a new target—only
to realize it was much deeper into enemy te-
rritory. His crew asked whether the coordina-
tes were correct, and they were—such was the
speed of the Ukrainian forces’ advance.
"I admit that after years of war, I feel tired
and exhausted... But when you see from the
sky the destroyed cities that you remember as
beautiful and flourishing…" he paused, adding
that he no longer thinks about leaving the ar-
med forces—not until victory. "What will I do
first? I've never been abroad with my family,
and my wife reminds me of it regularly. But to
be honest, I'm afraid of flying... as a passenger,"
joked the helicopter pilot, who has been awar-
ded the Order for Courage (III and II degrees),
the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Order, and the Silver
Cross for his actions.
UKRAINE
By the end of August last year, Mykhailo "Karnazh" had carried out 132 such attacks
with unguided rockets.
A shot from the training of Ukrainian paratroopers on Mi-8 helicopters. Mykhailo
also conducted flights with special forces.
These two photos of a Mi-8MSB helicopter with the "Orca Hunter"
markings had already surfaced in May 2022. However, based on the
camouflage pattern and other details, it is a different aircraft than the
one Mykhailo "Karnazh" was photographed in front of.
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