The 11th Separate Army Aviation Brigade Kherson published photos of a Mi-24V helicopter undergoing maintenance, showing an exceptionally large number of markings indicating destroyed airborne threats.
Specifically, there are 78 marks on board indicating downed drones, as well as another 107 unidentified marks. There are two main theories regarding what these latter marks might mean. The first is that there have been so many interceptions that the Mi-24V simply ran out of space for markings on board.
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Another theory is that the markings represent the number of strikes carried out against enemy positions using unguided air-to-ground rockets in pop-up attacks in recent years. Further support for this theory comes from the fact that this Mi-24V was equipped with launch pods for S-8 unguided rockets.
However, it remains unclear for now what the second set of markings on the Ukrainian Mi-24V's fuselage actually signifies. Taken together, the markings amount to an impressive total of 185 russian targets engaged.
As of now, this Mi-24V may turn out to be the most effective in terms of the number of targets among all Ukrainian helicopters captured on camera. However, this remains only an estimate, and it is currently impossible to definitively determine the most effective helicopter in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as there are too few publicly available images showing confirmed-hit markings on Ukrainian helicopters.
As for the helicopter itself, it is a Mi-24V variant, several of which were transferred to Ukraine from the Czech Republic as military aid in 2022, and by July that year they were already being used to strike russian forces.
It appears that the Mi-24V uses its standard 12.7 mm YakB-12.7 four-barrel machine gun, mounted in a movable nose turret, to intercept enemy drones.
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