After Russia invaded Ukraine, Slipkan advised Air Drive recruiters that he might fly a fighter jet, however they stated that he was too previous. He grew to become an infantry soldier within the Territorial Protection Forces as a substitute. For 3 months, he served exterior Mykolaiv, close to the Black Sea, and accomplished a pair of ten-day rotations. To his frustration, he didn’t combat in any battles.
In August, 2022, Slipkan borrowed a Yak-52—an aerobatics aircraft—and, together with a door gunner, started looking for Russian reconnaissance drones. They took periodic flights for 9 months however hit no targets, partially as a result of it was so onerous to find the drones at evening. When he met Fatkullin, the 2 realized that they shared an ambition to hunt Shaheds, and determined to crew up. Slipkan advised Fatkullin {that a} businessman he knew from his Africa days had lent him an Antonov-28 that had been used for skydiving earlier than the warfare. Slipkan admired Fatkullin’s piloting expertise, telling me that, simply as some swimmers really feel most comfy within the water, “Timur feels higher within the sky.”
The admiration was mutual. Fatkullin liked listening to Slipkan’s tales about his Soviet missions in fighter jets. And Fatkullin was deeply moved when he discovered that Slipkan had suffered personally within the warfare. In September, 2022, his son was killed on the entrance line, in circumstances that he nonetheless finds virtually unimaginable to debate. Slipkan advised me not too long ago, “All the things that I’m not capable of give to my son anymore, I give to Timur and the blokes.”
For a 12 months, the 2 males petitioned Ukrainian army authorities to allow them to type a unit for taking pictures down Shaheds. In the meantime, the incidence of drone assaults on Ukraine was rising. However, in Fatkullin’s telling, no one in a senior protection function wished accountability for the unit. Finally, in June, 2025, the required paperwork was signed, after Fatkullin and Slipkan agreed to be liable in the event that they triggered an accident or downed a drone over a populated space. Technically, the group can be a volunteer unit of Ukraine’s Territorial Protection Forces, however below the operative management of the Air Drive. Formally, the unit was referred to as the Air Protection Group. Privately, Ukrainians referred to as it Aerotim.
One of many first folks Fatkullin contacted was Serhii Gusak, the motorcycle daredevil. Gusak, a pacifist, had spent the warfare true to his rules. For the primary 12 months, he had delivered humanitarian help in Kyiv and japanese Ukraine on behalf of charities. He additionally soldered elements for a agency making interceptor drones that the Ukrainians used to focus on Russia’s reconnaissance plane. However he wished to discover a extra energetic option to defend his nation. He thought-about coaching as a medical-evacuation employee for injured fighters.
Cartoon by Roz Chast
Fatkullin’s name got here as a reduction. Becoming a member of the unit would let Gusak defend Ukrainians with out getting blood on his palms. (Fatkullin advised me that his good friend “doesn’t need to kill Russians,” including, “I don’t have this drawback.”) Fatkullin proposed that Gusak grow to be his door gunner, taking pictures drones with a minigun. The work was perilous, as a result of the door gunner can be extra uncovered to shrapnel than the remainder of the crew, however Gusak accepted the function. He acquired two days of coaching from a former army officer on the right way to work and preserve the weapon.
