THIS is the moment Ukrainian forces down a prize Russian helicopter with a brutal new tactic for the first time.
Troops shot down an £11million Mi-8 helicopter with a deep strike drone inside Russia, Ukraine’s Special Forces said.
Scope-view footage of the incredible take down shows the helicopter wavering in the bottom of the shot, ringed in red.
The cross hairs line up over the helicopter as it nears, until it is directly in the firing line.
The chopper was blasted out of the sky over Russia’s Rostov Oblast.
Celebrating the success of the mission, the Special Forces said: “We are changing the rules of the game: now we are hunting!
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“For the first time, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in the air by an SSO ‘deep strike’ drone!
“Every mission requires creativity, starting from the technical characteristics of the means, and ending with the planning and the training of the pilots.
“This mission left the enemy with very many questions, the answers to which are known only by the Mi-8 crew members — but they will not tell.
“Special Operations Forces: Always beyond the boundary!”
Ukraine’s air defences also scored a major success this week.
In the midst of a Russian missile attack on Wednesday, a mobile fire group shot down a Kalibr cruise missile using a man-portable air defence system.
And the electronic warfare department has also been working hard.
They successfully downed one of Putin’s supposedly “invincible” hypersonic missiles using the power of music.
A crack team of techies known as Night Watch are jamming signals on the Russian weapons using a parody of a Kremlin Tune advertising.
The group claims to have brought down 19 Kinzhal missiles – described by Putin himself as “invincible” – in the past two weeks.
The Mi-8 is a Soviet-designed twin-engine helicopter used by Russia’s army for transport and combat support.
After being introduced in the ’60s, it remains one of the most widely used helicopters globally.
Russian Mi-8s have been targeted before in Ukrainian strikes.
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In September, Ukraine‘s military intelligence agency (HUR), reported that it destroyed several Mi-8 helicopters in attacks in Russian-occupied Crimea.
In June, the military claimed it destroyed an Mi-8 at an airfield in Russia‘s Bryansk Oblast.