Journalists from Slidstvo.Info have found the Russian commanders who are giving orders to attack civilians in Nikopol and Marhanets, in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
According to sources, the FPV drone strikes are being carried out by soldiers from the Russian Federation’s 345th Airborne Assault Regiment.
The operations are being led by unit commander Petro Popov (Петр Попов) and head of the unmanned aviation service Ihor Zabolotskyi (Игорь Заболоцкий).
This is reported in an investigation by Slidstvo.Info ‘I would just cut him to pieces,’ says the mother of a 24-year-old girl from Nikopol who was killed by a Russian drone.
Russian FPV drone operators systematically strike residential areas of Nikopol, infrastructure facilities, rescuers and police officers. The Slidstvo.Info editorial team found out who is behind these strikes.
In June 2025, the Russian Telegram channel Kalonye Strely published a video of a strike on a high-rise building in Nikopol, allegedly housing Ukrainian military personnel. The authors called themselves a ‘news channel of the airborne assault regiment’ but concealed the unit number.
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- Screenshot of the Telegram channel
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- Attack on a high-rise building
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- Screenshot of the Telegram channel
Later, other footage appeared on the same channel — an ‘air battle’ with the Ukrainian ‘Leleka-100’. It was this footage that revealed the identity of the operators.
Journalists from Slidstvo.Info found these videos with the original sound. They had been uploaded earlier — on 1 August — to the Telegram channel of Russian propagandist Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Bars Sarmat special forces centre. The description mentions: “Fighters of the Bars-Sarmat UAV Special Forces Centre, together with the Pryanika air defence unit of the 345th Airborne Assault Regiment, shot down a Ukrainian UAV near Enerhodar (the city has been occupied since March 2022, — note)”.
Thus, Kalonye Strely are directly linked to the 345th Airborne Assault Regiment — the same regiment whose operators launch drones at civilians in Nikopol. Their deployment points are the occupied Kamianka-Dniprovska and Velyka Znamianka — directly opposite the city across the Dnipro River.
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The interceptions analysed by journalists show a pattern. The strikes are most often directed at private sector houses near the shore, the port and telecommunications facilities. Sometimes the attacks look like training exercises.
“Now, 15-20 per cent of drones have started to fly further, and therefore the ‘kill zone (the place where fire is concentrated, — ed.)’ has increased by three to four kilometres. The Russian military is taking advantage of the proximity and attacking the civilian population,” explains Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for the South Operational Command.
Sources of Slidstvo.Info confirm that orders to carry out attacks on Nikopol and Marganets are given by commander Petro Popov (Петр Попов) and UAV commander Ihor Zabolotskyi (Игорь Заболоцкий).
Petro Popov
42-year-old Petro Popov is a native of Stavropol. He is married and has a son and two daughters; his youngest daughter was born in the summer of 2022, when her father was probably already killing peaceful Ukrainians.
In the phone book, his number appears as ‘Battalion Commander,’ ‘Major Popov,’ ‘Popov NSh,’ and ‘M-R Popov Kombat’. The email address registered to the Russian commander’s number is written in Latin letters: ‘Petro and Maria’ — presumably referring to him and his wife. The Russian himself does not publicly share his own photos, but his wife Maria willingly publishes joint family photos from 2018 — from holidays and winter celebrations.
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- Popov with his wife
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- Popov with his family
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- Popov with his family
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- Popov with his family
In his documents, Popov lists the address of military unit No. 54801. He has served in the airborne troops since at least 2005 — Russian propaganda media still circulate his photo from the 9 May parade in Moscow as illustrative material.
Petro Popov during the 9 May parade in Moscow
There is significantly less publicly available information about Ihor Zabolotskyi, who is the head of the unmanned aviation service: no photos could be found, and he does not have any social media accounts. The Russian military officer is 46 years old. He is registered in Ulyanovsk, in a five-storey building on Tupolev Street. In 2020, his phone number appeared in a closed database with the caption: ‘Igor VDV’ (transl. — VDV stands for Airborne Forces).
Journalists found that Zabolotskiy is listed among the owners of five land plots in the Krasnoyarsk region — presumably, the salary of the ‘chief of drone launches at civilians’ allows him to purchase such property.
On 11 October, a Russian FPV drone struck a beer shop in a residential area in Nikopol, killing 24-year-old local resident Ruslana Morozova. Journalists from Slidstvo.Info obtained video footage of the drone that attacked the city. While searching for those involved in this attack, journalists managed to identify the Russian commanders who are directing strikes against civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
