Ukraine needed Western help to target Putin's helicopter - Scott Ritter | 29 May 2025 | Ukraine must have relied on assistance from the West if it did in fact target a helicopter carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has told RT. Russian air defense division commander Yury Dashkin told the Russia 1 channel last week that Putin's helicopter had been caught in the "epicenter" of a massive Ukrainian drone attack during a visit to Kursk Region on May 20. The intensity of aerial incursions "increased significantly" when the president was in the air, with 46 incoming fixed-wing UAVs being shot down in the area, he said. In an interview with RT on Wednesday, Ritter stressed that "if the Ukrainians drones actually targeted the Russian president, they did not do so in a vacuum...there would have been assistance provided by the West, which means that the West is targeting the Russian president."