12-year-old boy neutralizes Russian FPV drone that was flying toward his brothers and sisters

Ukrinform reports this, citing Suspilne Chernihiv.

On April 18 the boy single-handedly cut the fiber-optic cable, thereby saving his brothers and sisters from the Russian drone.

The boy said he was outside when he saw a Russian UAV flying toward where his younger siblings were playing.

"It was just flying, I saw it starting to turn. I crouched, then saw it go up. I said: 'That's it, 15 seconds and I'll cut it!' My nephew ran out and shouted: 'Cut it!' I cut it and saw it begin to accelerate upward because it lost control and started to fall. We were already preparing for it to explode. But the drone fell about 100–150 meters away from us into the bushes," he said.

Anatolii said he had been taught how to cut fiber optics by military acquaintances.

"We had gone to the forest to help them cut firewood. We became friends. After we cut the last tree, there was this fiber on it. He showed me and said: 'In rare cases, cut it.' Then instinct kicked in, because there were three of my own (siblings) and three more (others)," the boy explained.

According to him, it was the first time he had done this and he was scared, but fear for his family outweighed everything.

Mykyta Havrylenko, operations director of the UAV operator training center "Kruk," said the boy was lucky there was no second drone nearby.

"Usually an FPV drone does not fly alone. It is guided by another drone from the air. And if that drone, from a height of 300 meters, sees a boy trying to neutralize it—cutting or tangling the fiber optics—what happens next? The boy becomes a priority target because he is interfering," he stressed.

Anatolii is currently in the seventh grade. His father, Volodymyr Poltoratskyi, said that due to the security situation the family has moved to Chernihiv and plans to apply for internally displaced person status. Anatolii is the eldest of five children.

The boy said he wants the war to end. His main hobby is mechanics—he enjoys spending time with his father and helping repair their car. After this incident, he says he wants to become a soldier and work with drones.

As reported, the Russian army struck the town of Semenivka in Chernihiv region with an FPV drone, hitting an infrastructure facility.