A Ukrainian service member with the callsign Talisman learned to fly four heavy strike drone platforms and now switches between them when conditions demand it, the 808th Dnistrovska Separate Support Brigade reported on 23 September. Before joining the military, he worked in business.

He began his service in a unit in Rivne Oblast, in northwestern Ukraine, starting as a driver and later moving to battalion management tasks. He was then seconded to the 808th Brigade and eventually transferred to its roster permanently. It was there that he retrained as a heavy strike drone pilot.

Four platforms, one pilot

Heavy bombers were just coming into wide use when the unit was moved onto them. They trained for a week at the manufacturer, then practiced in the unit. Everyone started on the Vampire. After nearly a year on it, Talisman tried a second platform. "When you already have the base and the foundation, mastering another platform is much easier," he said.

Talisman now operates four platforms—the Vampire, a hexacopter with six motors, and three quadcopters: the Ares A1, the Heavy Shot, and the Magura Mini. Each type has its own characteristics—some are more resistant to jamming or navigation suppression than others, he said.

"I'd probably single out the Vampire and the Ares. The Vampire is more pleasant to operate, while the Ares is more resistant to various types of jamming. I've had situations where the Vampire wasn't working, and I continued carrying out missions on the Ares," Talisman said.

The Vampire is a six-rotor bomber built by Ukraine's SkyFall, originally codified with a range of up to 20 kilometers carrying up to 15 kilograms. The company says the current range is 35–40 kilometers. The Ares A1, built by Drones of Ukraine, has been in service since 2023 in strike, remote-mining, and resupply roles.

"The hardest thing is when there's no water. For a shower. Positions are all different: for some it's harder to get there, for some it's harder to work with drones. I have this thing—it's important to me that there's water," he said with a smile.

His crews have worked the Donetsk direction, near Lyman, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and later on tasks in Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts. In winter they drove in for the night and had to finish the task in that window, some faster and some slower depending on conditions and on Russian jamming, before the next crew took over. In warm weather they stay on position for four to seven days at a stretch, in crews of four or five.

His callsign came from his time serving alongside his fellow soldiers. "We had luck when I was with them. That's how they gave me this callsign," he said.

After the war, Talisman sees himself returning to civilian life. Before military service he was an entrepreneur and plans to go back to it.

Brigade tops remote-mining rating

In June 2026, the 808th Brigade topped Ukraine's DELTA remote-mining rating, which ranks units by how effectively they turn enemy approach routes into traps with drones.

Russia's large combined missile-and-drone attack on Kyiv early on 24 September killed two people in the capital and damaged residential and civilian infrastructure, including a maternity hospital, according to Vitali Klitschko, the capital's mayor. The strike involved 282 attack drones alongside ballistic and hypersonic missiles, Ukraine's Air Force said.

The strike came as US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were pursuing an energy ceasefire during the UN General Assembly in New York. Ukraine was ready to stop attacks on Russian energy facilities if Moscow agreed to stop striking Ukraine's energy system, Zelenskyy said after meeting Trump on 22 September.

Air defense intercepts over 200 targets

Russia launched Zircon hypersonic missiles, an unspecified number of Iskander-M/S-400/KN-23 ballistic missiles, and 282 Shahed-type and Gerbera attack drones, Ukraine's Air Force said. The drones were accompanied by Banderol and Dan-T loitering munitions, as well as parody decoy drones.

By 08:00, Ukrainian forces had destroyed or suppressed 227 targets, including four Zircons, three ballistic missiles, one Banderol/Dan-T loitering munition, and 219 drones.

The Air Force did not disclose how many ballistic missiles Russia launched at Kyiv. Zelenskyy later said Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 60% of the ballistic missiles targeting the capital during three waves of attacks.

Zelenskyy added that the ballistic attack came while he was meeting US lawmakers in New York to discuss sanctions against Russia. He also called for more ballistic missile interceptors, saying Russia had targeted civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, a maternity hospital, energy facilities, and logistics.

Maternity hospital, residential buildings damaged

In Kyiv's Podilsky district, the maternity hospital's windows and part of its facade were damaged, according to the Ministry of Health. No casualties were reported inside the facility. One person was killed in a nearby parking lot, and a clinic-diagnostic center was also damaged.

In Dniprovskyi district, a residential building, a non-residential building, and several private houses were damaged. One private house was partially destroyed. A three-story administrative building was also damaged, and a body was found there. In the Solomiansky district, a warehouse was partially destroyed and caught fire. Missile debris fell on a roadway in Darnytskyi district.

In Kyiv Oblast, one person was injured, and eight objects were damaged across three districts, the Kyiv Oblast Military Administration said. The damage included private houses and vehicles.

Zelenskyy called for stronger sanctions against Russia and more air-defense interceptors as the attacks continued during the UN General Assembly week.