How Putin narrowly avoided Ukrainian kamikaze drone attack

A Ukrainian Liutyi (Fierce) long-range drone hit a Russian helicopter base in the Adler district of Sochi on its second combat flight – just one day after Russian leader Vladimir Putin had met with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev there.

Source: UP’s article "Sanctions from 1000 kilometres away: the story of the Ukrainian drone Liutyi (Fierce) burning Russian oil refineries".

Details: On 1 October 2023, a helicopter base that served Putin's residence among other sites came under attack from the Liutyi.

"We hit their helicopter landing site and damaged several helicopters. But we didn't know at first that the day before we hit Adler, Putin had met with Tokayev there. Putin was 12 km away from where the Liutyi’s second strike took place. This was confirmed to us later," intelligence sources told Ukrainska Pravda.

At the same time, the Russians did not even know what had hit them.

"When it struck Sochi, they assumed it had come from a ship or from the mountains in Georgia. They had no idea it had come from Ukraine. And then all of a sudden it hit St Petersburg – practically the opposite end of the country. That was evidently a shock for them," a person involved in the launches recalled in a conversation with Ukrainska Pravda.

Read the article by Ukrainska Pravda to find out how the Ukrainian Liutyi kamikaze drone has gone from being a single model to burning down Russian refineries and airfields in the context of the full-scale war, why Ukrainian operators were afraid to launch it, and how competition between the special services gave the drone a chance to become a truly mass-produced weapon.

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