Commander honors Ukrainian soldier who downed attack drone with machine gun

"Meet Oleksandr, a soldier of the Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Air Force Radio Engineering Brigade," Oleshchuk wrote along with the picture, which showed the soldier standing next to the wreckage of the drone.

Oleksandr destroyed the enemy Shahed UAV using a DShK machine gun in Odesa Oblast overnight on Dec. 13-14, Oleshchuk wrote

Oleksandr is a soldier, and a mechanic of a logistics platoon, but he is regularly involved in the work of mobile fire groups.

The soldier "shot it down not because it was repainted, but because it was Russian," Oleshchuk added, alluding to Russia’s recently adopted practice of painting drones black to make them less visible at night.

"Be like Oleksandr! Destroy everything Russian!" Oleshchuk added.

Air raid alerts were sounded in a number of regions across Ukraine overnight on Dec. 13-14. A strike in Odesa Oblast injured 11 people and the attack lasted more than seven hours.

The Russian military launched 42 Iranian kamikaze drones into Ukraine overnight on Dec. 13-14, with air defense forces destroying all but one.