Ukrainian helicopter crew say women flash them as they fly overhead to boost their morale fighting Russia – Yahoo News

A Ukrainian Mi-24 attack helicopter flies during military drills in Dnipropetrovsk region, on June 7, 2023.Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters

A Ukrainian air force crew told The Sunday Times that women flash them when they fly overhead.

One woman even proposed marriage by holding up a sign as they flew over a town, a pilot said.

The Ukrainian air force is trying to keep morale high as it faces a strong Russian counterpart.

A Ukrainian helicopter crew told The Sunday Times that women in the country flash them as they fly overhead to boost their morale in fighting Russia.

In a recent feature, the show of support was described by a Ukrainian pilot, identified only by his rank of major and his first name Maksym.

He said his crew saves the GPS locations of places where it happens, lighthearted moment in their dangerous and often demoralizing missions against a far superior Russian air force.

One woman even proposed marriage to them by holding up a sign, he said.

Maksym and his fellow airmen have been flying a Soviet-designed Mil Mi-8 helicopter on daily missions to Bakhmut, an eastern city in Ukraine, which has become a flashpoint in the war.

On their way to their missions they try to keep conversation light and positive, Maksym said, and like to interact with civilians on the ground. They recently threw a bottle of cognac wrapped in a towel to an elderly man they spotted in the war-torn landscape, he said.

These kind of interactions as more viable because the helicopters fly very low to avoid Russian air-defense, often just 15 feet above ground, the Times report said.

The Ukrainian air force is struggling against a far better-armed Russia, Maksym said. The disparity is especially strong between the air forces, which Maksym characterized by saying: "The Russians understand we can do nothing to them in the air."

Ukraine has limited ammunition and no aircraft that counters Russia's newest models in the sky, he said. Half of his unit has already been killed, he added.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told The Wall Street Journal last month that Russian air superiority would exact a heavy toll on Ukrainian soldiers if Western powers did not provide them with reinforcements.

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Ukrainian helicopter crew say women flash them as they fly overhead to boost their morale fighting Russia - Yahoo News