Add The New York Post on Google From the gun cabinet of his shooting range, Volodymyr Sukhomlyn pulls out a semiautomatic shotgun.
In pre-war Ukraine, such weapons were popular as sporting guns, used for hunting duck, hares and the odd fox.
Today they are in demand against a new deadly predator in the sky — which, unlike the local buzzards and eagles, preys on humans rather than animals.
Zaporizhzhia is now plagued by Russian FPV or First-Person-View drones, which allow a pilot to fly a bomb directly onto a target.
They can buzz over a combat zone like giant mosquitoes, before swooping down and blowing their victims to pieces.
The safest response is generally to dash for cover — but in skilled hands, a shotgun might just take one out.
Since FPVs began prowling Zaporizhzhia’s southern outskirts this summer, Sukhomlyn has been doing a roaring trade selling 12-gauge and 20-gauge models to residents, who buy them as a final line of defense.
“When the war first broke out, it was mainly rifles that people wanted,” Sukhomlyn, a 46-year-old father of three, told The Post.
“Now it’s shotguns that are in demand. If you train properly, your chances of bringing an FPV down are quite high. Although it may come for you while you try to shoot it, so you need a very steady nerve.”
A city of 750,000, Zaporizhzhia sits on the River Dnipro in eastern Ukraine and is a key industrial hub.
Capturing it would be a major prize for Vladimir Putin, although four years into the war, the nearest Russian troops still remain around 20 miles south-east.
In the meantime, they are harassing the city from the air, sending in FPVS, missiles and Iranian-made shaheed drones — gasoline-powered UAVs that emit a lawnmower-like wine.
Last week, an overnight shaheed salvo landed a mile from the hotel I was staying in, wrecking a large shopping mall.
It was the third mall to be hit in two months, along with attacks on gas stations, coffee stands and private homes.
Sukhomlyn jokes that his shooting range, in an underground basement of an old Soviet industrial estate, “is one of the few safe places to be.”
Many of his visitors are soldiers practicing their shooting skills.
Because of the drone threat, outdoor rifle ranges are off limits.
His range is equipped for simulating urban combat scenarios, with a bullet-ridden old Lada hatchback that visitors can practice shooting around.
As is shown by shotgun cartridges that now litter the floor, FPVs are a growing threat.
Shotguns stand more chance of bringing them down, as they fire pellets that spray over a wide area, and are already used by troops on the frontline.
Thus has a gun based on the old-school blunderbuss technique found a new place in 21st century warfare.
Sukhomlyn expects civilian demand to increase as the drone threat gets worse.
“To start off, it was mainly people living in the countryside on the southern outskirts of Zaporizhzhia who were buying shotguns,” he said.
“A lot of them are farmers, and some even keep one in their tractor or combine harvester when they’re out in the fields.
“But more recently it’s been bus drivers and cabbies buying them, too — anyone who is out on the streets a lot.”
One FPV attack this month injured several people at a supermarket, leaving the floor stained with blood.
Another ploughed into the upper floors of a government building downtown.
“I heard it coming and we had to hide in a shop when it exploded,” said Julia Sologub, 31.
“It used to be just a problem for soldiers — now it’s one for civilians, too.”
Some Ukrainian shooting ranges now offer computer-simulated training courses for shooting down FPVs, using VR headsets.
Even with a shotgun, though, FPVs can be harder to hit than the wiliest grouse: they can weave and duck around, and some can travel at 100 mph or more.
Hitting one may also detonate the payload, which can be dangerous if it is already very close.
Indeed, anyone who shoots down an FPV drone with a shotgun has arguably bagged the kill of a lifetime.
At Sukhomlyn’s main gun store downtown, an FPV that one local shot down has pride of place on the wall — just as a lion’s head might have done in the days of big game hunting.
However, “Pip,” a US military volunteer serving with Ukraine’s Armed Forces, does not recommend trying to bag one as a trophy.
He was once chased by an FPV as he drove his vehicle from the battlefield, and remembers it being one of the most terrifying experiences of his time in Ukraine.
“We were just about to reach for our shotgun, but then luckily the drone ran out of battery and crashed to the ground. You can bring one down with a shotgun, but it’s certainly not easy. It all depends on the distance, the skill of the enemy pilot — and your own nerves.”
