Ukraine's assault helicopter barely misses vehicles on busy highway; watch

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has recently shared a video showing an assault helicopter flying low over a busy highway. As the video was uploaded on the microblogging platform, Twitter, people were expressing their astonishment at the fact that the helicopter hovering dangerously near a road and was barely missing the vehicles. The incident was captured by a camera inside a car moving in the other direction.      

The helicopter can be seen in the video flying just a few meters from both a car and a lorry as it rotates its propellers. The chopper which was passing through the traffic had the Ukrainian flag painted all over it. Furthermore, the footage was uploaded with the caption "Welcome to Ukraine".  

Aside from its proximity to an unmarked street, throughout the Russia-Ukraine war, choppers flying low have not been uncommon. According to the Newsweek report, in times of war, pilots on both sides of the battle try their utmost to stay covert and avoid being detected by the enemy radar. Additionally, the practice reduces the risk of being shot down by surface-to-air missiles. 

According to a Forbes article in June, two Russian Su-25 assault aircraft along with one of their pilots crashed while flying at low altitudes into or out of a conflict area.  

Ukraine's forces have been successfully taking down Russian helicopters

Besides this, another helicopter from Ukraine was seen hovering low over a cornfield in a video posted to Twitter by Euromaidan Press in September. The caption for that video read, “Due to [the] abundance of MANPADS (man portable air defense systems) on the front, the helicopters and ground-attack aircraft have to fly at extremely low altitudes," Newsweek reported.  

Meanwhile, in recent weeks, Ukraine's forces have been successfully taking down Russian helicopters. On September 22, Ukrainian soldiers used an Igla MANPADS to shoot down a Russian Ka-52 "Alligator" helicopter. The helicopter can be seen flying in the distance in a video that was posted on social media. It was then seen to be flying after being hit for a little distance before coming to a stop in a cloud of smoke. 

In addition to this, on October 12, the Ukrainian air force reported on Telegram that between 8:40 and 8:58 a.m. (local time), four Russian helicopters—likely Ka-52s—were downed by anti-aircraft missile units. They were probably "providing fire support to the ground occupation troops in the southern direction," according to officials. 

(Image: Twitter/ @DefenceU)