A metallurgist from Azovstal led a drone crew that took down more than a hundred targets
Mykola Kuznetsov, a resident of Mariupol who worked at the Azovstal plant before the full-scale invasion, survived the occupation, filtration, and deportation to the Russian Federation, after which he was able to return home and lead a successful anti-aircraft drone crew.
Together with his comrades in the “East” Air Command, he has already destroyed 116 enemy aerial targets over the Dnipropetrovsk region, setting a personal record for his unit—five drones eliminated in a single attack.
The Mariupol native began his combat career in an engineering and sapper unit of the Airborne Forces and took part in heavy fighting in the Luhansk region, where he sustained a shrapnel wound while evacuating the wounded in Bilohorivka. After being deemed unfit for service in the airborne forces by a military medical commission, in the spring of 2025, Mykola transferred to an interceptor drone unit and by that fall had become a crew commander, whose first target was a Russian “Shahed” drone approaching Pavlohrad. The commander notes that countering enemy operators and reconnaissance drones such as the “Orlan” is a complex intellectual battle at speeds exceeding 150 km/h, and for the courage he displayed, the defender was awarded the Order “For Courage” and the “Golden Cross” medal.
This story was shared on the “East” Air Command’s page.
On the night of June 21, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ unmanned systems forces struck a number of Russian occupation forces’ targets in the temporarily occupied Crimea, as well as in the occupied territories of the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
On June 20, Ukrainian defense forces struck the Tyumen Oil Refinery (“Antipinsky”) in Russia, located more than 2,000 km from the Ukrainian border.
Ukrainian drones attacked the Russian ferry “Panagia,” which, according to Russian sources, was being used to transport military cargo from the Krasnodar Krai to the temporarily occupied Crimea.
On the night of Saturday, June 21, drones attacked the port in Kerch in the temporarily occupied Crimea and the “Kavkaz” port in the Krasnodar Krai of the Russian Federation, resulting in fires at the facilities.
In the Dnipro direction, particularly on the temporarily occupied left bank of the Kherson region, Russian troops are increasingly facing supply and logistics challenges. Ukrainian defense forces have intensified pressure on key supply routes, further complicating the movement and delivery of resources to the occupying forces.
A Ukrainian drone attack on targets in the Moscow region on Thursday served as yet another example that, according to CNN, confirms the effectiveness of Ukraine’s strategy of overwhelming Russian air defense systems through the massive use of drones.
