Ukrainian helicopter crew say women flash them as they fly overhead, boosting their morale as they fight Russia

• A Ukrainian air-force crew told The Sunday Times that women flash them when they fly overhead.
• One woman even proposed marriage by holding up a sign as they flew over a town, a pilot said.

A Ukrainian helicopter crew told The Sunday Times that women in the country flash them as they fly overhead, boosting their morale as they fight Russia.

In a recent feature, the show of support was described by a Ukrainian pilot, referred to only as a major named Maksym.

The article said his crew had saved the GPS locations of places where it'd happened, lighthearted moments in their dangerous and often demoralizing missions against a far superior Russian air force.

One woman even proposed marriage to them by holding up a sign, per the report.

Maksym and his fellow airmen have been flying a Soviet-designed Mil Mi-8 helicopter on daily missions to Bakhmut, an eastern city in Ukraine, which has become a flash point in the war.

On their way to their missions they try to keep the conversation light and positive, The Times said. They recently threw a bottle of cognac wrapped in a towel to an elderly man they spotted in the war-torn landscape, the report said.

These kinds of interactions are more viable because the helicopters, per the report, fly very low to avoid Russian air defenses. The Times said they are often just 15 feet above the ground.

The Ukrainian air force is struggling against a far better-armed Russia, Maksym said. The disparity is especially strong between the air forces, which Maksym characterized by saying: "The Russians understand we can do nothing to them in the air."

Ukraine has limited ammunition and no aircraft that counters Russia's newest models in the sky, he said. Half of his unit has already been killed, he added.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told The Wall Street Journal last month that Russian air superiority would exact a heavy toll on Ukrainian soldiers if Western powers did not provide them with reinforcements.

July 20, 2023: This story was updated to clarify the attribution in the Sunday Times story, which was based in part on an interview with the entire Ukrainian helicopter crew, not just the crew member identified as Maksym.