The Russian pilot who defected with stolen fighter-jet parts will get a $500,000 reward, Ukraine says

BombOmOm@lemmy.world to Ukraine@sopuli.xyz – 221 points –
The Russian pilot who defected with stolen fighter-jet parts will get a $500,000 reward, Ukraine says
businessinsider.com
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The Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine is poised to get a hefty reward from his home country's sworn enemy.

Sworn enemy? Two years ago the Russians were telling us we couldn't begin to understand the depth of their bond with Ukrainians.

To quote someone else I saw regarding this "bond": This made up lore about a sacret bond between russia and its neighbors is just weeb shit for slavs. Russia has always fucked with its neighbors for their own gain.

For the gain of its rulers. Average Russian lived probably in even poorer conditions than the neighbors, due to the same rulers. The tragedy of Russia is such that even when people understand how fuckup the system is and create revolution to remove those rulers, the new system that replaces the old is not much better, or even worse.

Based on what I've read of Russian domestic abuse, maybe this is just what love looks like to them?

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

I bet nobody understood what they actually meant.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine is poised to get a hefty reward from his home country's sworn enemy.

A Ukrainian military-intelligence spokesperson, Andrii Yusov, announced Ukraine would be rewarding the pilot with the equivalent of $500,000, The Kyiv Independent reported.

In April 2022, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law offering rewards for Russian troops who transferred military equipment to Ukraine.

"What is happening now is simply genocide of the Ukrainian people," the pilot said in a video released by Ukraine's Defense Intelligence, according to a CNN translation.

The pilot is now encouraging other Russian troops to follow his example and abandon Russia's war.

Correction: September 6, 2023 — An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Ukrainian efforts to get Russian troops to surrender and turn over military equipment.


The original article contains 313 words, the summary contains 129 words. Saved 59%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

A question, is what he took even worth that much?

I mean, good publicity and there won't be that many defections for this to become too expensive.

He defected with an Mi-8 filled with fighter jet parts. The helicopter alone is worth quit a bit more than $500,000, and the fighter parts are not something that Ukraine can source easily anymore as many of the soviet fighters are no longer in production. Russia also lost an experienced pilot and crew.

I would say Ukraine got a damn good deal here that they can hopefully replicate in the future.