Ukraine Drone Attack Pilot Describes His Role

A former Canadian butcher, who has adopted that as his call sign in the Ukrainian air force's 25th Air Assault Brigade, has lifted the lid a little on the highly secretive and highly successful anti-drone operations the unit conducts. Butcher recently made his first kill of a Russian drone (a highly dangerous Lancet) by getting his own explosive-laden drone close enough to bring the enemy aircraft down by its own self-inflicted detonation. "After months of training and hard work, I got my first confirmed kill as a pilot today," he said in an X post published by Forbes. "And this one saved lives, given it was a Lancet. Pretty to cool to think that I might be the only non-Ukrainian in the world to have ever taken one down with a fixed wing drone."

Butcher went to Ukraine to work for a humanitarian organization but decided to get more directly involved. In his 40s and with bad knees, he was of no use to the Army but his fondness for video games gave him skills to make a difference in the war. “I would say being a gamer has definitely helped,” he told Forbes. “You develop hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and you can see small changes on a monitor.” But he said not all his fellow suicide drone pilots are gamers. The battalion commander has never touched a console but is a quadruple ace. “It takes a lot of different factors, and different people bring different assets to the table,” says Butcher. “There is no career path for this.”