"I naively thought guitar could make difference. Then I realized you can only make difference by physically eliminating enemy," – Haidamaky guitarist Andrii Slieptsov
Haidamaky guitarist Andrii Slieptsov (Slipyi) overestimated the idea of attacking the enemy with music after the full-scale invasion began. And since then, he has been defending Ukraine as a service member. He is currently a UAV operator with the 426th Separate Unmanned Systems Battalion of the Marine Corps, a fighter in the "Couriers of the Apostle Peter" group.
On the routine and oddities of working with drones, his attitude toward Russians, reflections on motivation, and overcoming fear — in an interview with Censor.NET.
FOR ME, THE WAR BEGAN WITH TWO ENCIRCLEMENTS
- Conversations with fighters from creative professions open on the subject of motivation: how and when did they decide to defend us and the country with weapons in hand?
- We wrote an anthem for the 503rd Marine Battalion, "If you see, shoot" (a paraphrase of Vadym Sukharevskyi’s slogan, "See the enemy — shell the holy ... out of him!"). A childhood friend of mine who had been in the ATO and is now serving in the Air Assault Forces used to say, "You write songs like that, but will you fight yourselves?" That stung me a bit. Plus, the guys from the 503rd were warning that a full-scale war was coming. My drummer, Oleh Lomakovskyi, and I began preparing at a training camp of the "Ukrainian Legion." That went on for several years. In 2021, we signed reserve contracts with the 503rd Marine Battalion and took the oath. I also completed a theoretical sniper course at "Dyke Pole," and on February 24 we were due to begin practical training.
Accordingly, as part of the first-call reserve, we were required to report to our unit in the event of a full-scale war. So when it started, we waited for our brothers-in-arms from Lviv and on 26 February set out from Kyiv for Mariupol. But en route the commander contacted the then battalion commander, the late Hero of Ukraine Pavlo Sbytov, who ordered us to head to the New York area. As I understand it, the task was to fight our way to Mariupol from there with the battalion.
We stepped off near the village of Zachatіvka… I wasn’t ready for what was happening there, even though I’d undergone training for several years. Several thousand men and about 200 pieces of equipment were bearing down on us. We were encircled for the first time, withdrew to the village of Yevhenivka, where we were encircled again and withdrew. The guys hit them hard, but I wasn’t doing much yet, I didn’t know what I was doing. So yes, for me, the war began with two encirclements, and I was, to put it mildly, stunned
- A lot has happened since then, land was retaken and there were crushing defeats. But I remember the impressions from the first months of news from the battlefield, and it was a particularly heavy feeling, when entire units were sometimes encircled or captured, and sometimes half a brigade laid down their lives in a single battle. Do you remember what it felt like?
- It was terrifying, the first incoming rounds, the first concussions. Withdrawal with a rifle and body armor on while a tank was pressing us. After the first round landed next to me, I dropped and it felt like I wouldn’t get back up.
On the other hand, I know one of our battalions hit the b#stards hard and seized a lot of their equipment, even though the enemy vastly outnumbered us. But back then, I had no idea what was going on and was looking for someone more experienced to tell me what to do.
- And then it worked out that you became a UAV operator. How quickly?
- We pulled back to the Kurakhove area to recover. I started going out with the drone cover team. And although we trained for sniper work at the range, the commander told me to pick up the Mavic and learn to fly. I’m frankly a poor sniper, impatient and emotional, and the commander noticed.
I learned gradually, trained in Lviv, and worked with a Mavic near Avdiivka for quite a while, driving off the b#stards’ assaults on our positions. There was a position called "Truba," and the b#stards regularly approached it from both sides to take it, while we drove them off with munition drops. That’s when I stopped being a young Padawan and started killing enemy. In the fall of 2022, after the first b#stard I killed, the commander put a sea-wave beret on me, which I’ve had the right to wear since (a ritual as part of taking the Marine Corps oath).
- Do you remember how you felt after that historic hit?
- The b#stards came again; I dropped and hit. I started yelling with joy, and the commander barked, "Don’t let go of the controller!" It was all very intense; I was still in my adjustment period, trying to wrap my head around it. That was also when I had my first shell-shock. In the spring of 2023, I managed to knock out an enemy tank (near Opytne or Vodiane). It was my last high explosive anti-tank round, and I put it straight into the engine (back then their tanks were still driving without anti-drone cages). I remember going numb from the tension, and afterward, I had brutal muscle soreness.
- Did you make the munitions yourselves?
- Both: we made some ourselves, and the unit supplied some. The guys had the right contacts, sometimes we sourced materials on our own, sometimes volunteers provided them. Our engineers devised a fragmentation shell called "Nova Poshta," and there was also a munition called "Excalibur", I was the first to test it.
GOING BACK TO WORKING ON MAVIC WOULD BE LIKE PUNISHMENT TO ME
- How did you find the soldier in yourself?
- My steady commander, Captain Mykola Malyi (Poet), instilled my motivation. Back when I was working on Mavics, he would say: "What did you do today? Did you kill a Russian today? Why didn’t you kill a Muscovite? Maybe you didn’t want to kill a Muscovite?" It’s a tough kind of motivation: we have to kill those who came to kill us.
For a while, we worked with the 36th Brigade. Then the 503rd Marine Battalion was pulled for reorganization, first a regiment was formed and then the 38th Brigade, while we remained on the 36th Brigade’s roster. We met, thought it over, and 90% of us transferred to the 36th Brigade. Then we moved closer to Zaporizhzhia: we lived in the Dnipropetrovsk region and drove into the Zaporizhzhia region to hit the enemy in the Donetsk region. From there, in 2024, we moved to the Kherson region and operated around Krynky. That was when I finally switched from a Mavic to FPV.
From there, we moved to the Kharkiv region near Vovchansk, then to the Chernihiv region to recover, and later to the Kursk region. Work in the Kharkiv region was very intense as well. The battalion commander could even show up in person to ask how we were doing. At that point, we were essentially self-supplied on drones. Because we were delivering good results, the battalion commander and his deputy went out of their way to secure munitions for payload drops so we could operate properly.
- And in the Kursk region?
- The supply was a bit better there; we worked more with kamikaze drones. In the Kursk region, we transferred from the 36th Brigade to the 426th Separate Unmanned Systems Battalion of the Marine Corps. And now we’re working in the Kherson region again.
Each region has its own specifics. In Krynky, we already had a worked-out system for camouflage, avoiding EW, and so on. When we moved to the Kharkiv region, we spent about a month figuring out how to work effectively given a different landscape and force layout. The Kursk region brought new challenges too, which we overcame over time.
- What kind of drones do you prefer to work with?
- Once I switched to FPV, I realized that going back to a Mavic would feel like punishment. I could now get grenades into holes and dugouts and I loved that. It’s a rush, and the emotions are great. And if you manage to take out a vehicle, the feeling is indescribable.
Still, most of a UAV operator’s work is routine. We arrive at first light, work through the day, and head back at dusk. Then one comrade prepares the ammo load, another solders the drones, and I reflash them. It runs late into the night, we sleep four hours, and in the morning it all starts again. It’s hard, but interesting. I remember stretches when things went smoothly, we worked pretty relaxed and tested different ammunition loads.
- Do you keep a tally of results — personally or at the unit level?
- No. It’s like a gig you’ve already played: you play a great show for a huge crowd, even on the Maidan when there were a million people, and two or three days later you want the next one. Same here, the tally is kept at HQ.
- What do you think of Russian tactics and their army overall — both their infantry and their UAVs?
- I don’t see the whole picture. From what I’ve seen, the Russians dig in very quickly and well. There was a case where I dropped one small bomb on b#stards’ group and went back for another. I was gone maybe seven minutes, and when I returned with a new round there were already proper prone trenches. Even while I was dropping, they kept digging. It’s known they have fox holes inside their dugouts. If earlier you could fly inside on a fiber tether or over radio and try to work in there, now they hang cords, chains, and wires across the entrance, so the blast only happens at the entrance.
I saw in the Kursk region how they move in small groups you can’t really chase with a drone and that’s how they build up. I remember a case: a group of b#stards rolled in, we blew up their quads, and one was left alive. I hovered over him with a grenade, lined up and did the drop, no detonation. So I just terrorized that b#stard, circling over him. He threw his weapon at my drone, and even his body armor.
- Did you get a chance to talk to Russians in the Kursk region? I mean civilians.
- I didn’t have that experience. In general, when people talk to me about "good Russians," I’m still wary and frankly, I don’t trust any of them. We did a collaboration with Makarevich on one track with Haidamaky. But I still don’t trust a single Russian.
I UNDERSTAND THAT I WILL BE AT WAR TO THE BITTER END. I DO MY JOB WELL ENOUGH, SO WHY LOSE A COMBAT UNIT?
- From soldiers’ accounts, the front line is under near-continuous drone coverage. On especially tough missions crews support each other. Have you had cases where you got in each other’s way?
- Yes, plenty of "competition" stories with drones. I was ordered to carry out a bomber strike on a basement where bastards were inside. I keep flying and spot another Mavic — we’re heading straight at each other. I went in, dropped the munition where it needed to go, and never saw the other one again.
Another time, we launched on the same task with an adjacent unit. I fly in and… see another drone. I did my drop just as he was lining up his run. There was no confirmation for either of us — my camera captured his drop, and his camera captured my hit. That’s how it went.
- You described the fear of the first days of the war. Have you found a single recipe for overcoming it?
- I know clearly: the main thing is to stay camouflaged and keep still. If you’re not seen, nothing comes for you. Camouflage the position, camouflage the platform — stick to that and you’ll face only routine shelling. Because if the Russians know a UAV crew is dug in there, everything they’ve got will fly in, and they won’t spare the KABs.
Things change. This is a war of technology. Now there are thermal-imaging drones, and it’s very hard to hide from them. Hiding yourself is one thing; hiding equipment on a position is another. In the end, terrain changes everything.
- Have you personally had any near-death moments?
- There were situations, not many, but it happened, when we rolled into a position we hadn’t chosen. We were immediately spotted and targeted by FPV and Mavic drones. Which brings us back, again, to the importance of camouflage.
- How do you respond to the unspoken public debate about a rift between soldiers and civilians?
- Sometimes I feel my wife gets more worked up about draft-dodgers than I do. When I rotated to the rear, I didn’t see any prejudice toward me. I come across such things on social media, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I go back to my work.
The question is how long this will all last, and how long I’ll be here. Right now, I’m sure of one thing: I’ll be here to the bitter end. I love this work and, it seems, I know how to do it. So why lose a combat unit? The enemy still needs to be killed.
- Quite a few soldiers who came from the cultural sphere take non-combat posts, tour on the side, and eventually get discharged from the service. You are ready to go all the way.
- Before the full-scale invasion, Haidamaky and I recorded a very cool, intriguing album, "Triumph of the Word," set to poems of the Executed Renaissance. In March, there was to be a premiere at the Kharkiv Kurbas Theater as a theatrical–musical performance. There are pieces there that still give me goosebumps.
When the big war started, the uncertainty, the fears, there was a moment when, in anger, I looked at my musical path and thought: "Oh man, what nonsense I’d been doing." Compared to combat, it’s nothing.
We’d been volunteering since 2014. Back then, I naively thought a guitar could make a difference. Later, I realized you can only make a difference by physically eliminating the enemy. I won’t kill an enemy with a guitar, unless I take his head off with it.
Once I got into the war, of course, sometimes I still wanted to play. After the war, I plan to pick up more instruments (my wife is already prepping me for that). I have a hurdy-gurdy, and I like to dream about what I’ll do with it. So ideas are there, and I do plan to return to music after the war. Friends and acquaintances keep sending me new music.
- Allow me a final, perhaps boojie question: what gives you strength besides music?
- My wife supports me a lot. When the big war began, we sent our wives abroad. My Mariika lived in Germany for a year, then couldn’t take it anymore, even though I felt calmer with her safe. Back then, she wasn’t my wife yet. I joke: she didn’t want to marry a musician, but once I became a Marine, she did right away.
Now she’s my reliable rear. She helps our unit in every way. I should also mention the support of my son, family, and friends, it’s really good and inspiring to have it.
Olha Skorokhod, Censor. NET
