A Geran-2 attack drone (Shahed 136) is seen exploding in mid-air shortly before an F-16 flies overhead, with the unmistakable sound of an M61 Vulcan cannon heard in the background.
This is at least the second time Such a murder has been captured on video, although this new footage, first posted on Telegram, is the clearest we’ve had yet. The Iranian-designed one-way attack drone flies almost directly over the person filming the video and then is suddenly engulfed in a large explosion several times the size of the plane. An F-16, said to be one of those operated by the 107th Separate Aviation Wing of the Ukrainian Air Force, follows shortly after, moving away from the explosion as the delayed sound of the plane’s rotating cannon reaches the camera.
An F-16 fighter jet operated by the Ukrainian Air Force intercepts a Russian Shahed/Geran-type long-range OWA-UAV with its M61A1 Vulcan 20mm autocannon.
BRRRRTTT moment pic.twitter.com/B2JFI3XC7U
— Status-6 (Military and War News) (@Archer83Able) February 8, 2026
Celebrations from those on the ground can be heard as pieces of debris from the drone fall through the air, apparently towards a wooded area. Russia has extensively used the Shahed 136, which it calls Geran-2, during its invasion of Ukraine and first appeared in the second half of 2022. They have been used to attack critical infrastructure and military installations, as well as civilian buildings. Even 200-kilogram drones equipped with anti-aircraft missiles have been modified.
Counter drones
Relatively low cost compared to more advanced and much faster guided missiles, one-way attack drones are designed to be able to be used in large numbers over time or simultaneously and cause rapid depletion of an adversary’s anti-aircraft munitions stockpile. The cost of an interceptor missile far exceeds the cost of a comparatively simple drone, so interceptions using weapon munitions are much preferable whenever possible.
Anti-aircraft guns have seen a resurgence after many nations discarded them in favor of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), with Ukraine employing DShK machine guns along with searchlights in a tactic strongly reminiscent of scenes seen during World War II. More advanced developments involve the use of thermographic scopes or reflectors that use infrared rays. Modern, larger caliber anti-aircraft guns, such as the German Gepard, developed in the 1960s (which shows how long ago even newer models of anti-aircraft guns were developed) have also made their way into Ukraine’s inventory.
Ukrainian TDF forces in the north test a portable anti-aircraft searchlight system, intended primarily to detect smaller loitering munitions such as the Shahed-136. pic.twitter.com/hCuTMHImGe
— OSINTtécnico (@Osinttechnical) March 11, 2023
Helicopters and airplanes have also used their weapons to address the drone issue. This includes the crew-served door guns as well as the nose-mounted turrets of the Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters. Piston-engined Yak-52 training aircraft have also been put into service, with the rear crew member apparently responsible for using a handgun to shoot down drones, as in an early World War I aerial combat. Recent footage filmed by a French news crew showed the level of success achieved by an Antonov An-28 with crew-served M134 miniguns, achieving over 150 drone kills.
French channel TF1 shows an An-28 passenger plane, armed with miniguns, shooting down Shahed drones over Ukraine. The plane’s crew, made up of civilian volunteers, shot down a total of about 150 unmanned aerial vehicles.https://t.co/WU2nuiIqpO pic.twitter.com/LhdwO623Ne
– War translated (@wartranslated) February 5, 2026
The Vulcan M61
The M134 is effectively a scaled-down version of the M61 Vulcan used by the F-16 to shoot down the Russian drone. Instead of the 7.62 mm ammunition used by the machine gun, the aircraft’s cannon fires 20 mm bullets at a rate of up to 6,000 per minute. The M61 was first used in combat in 1965 and has been in frontline service continuously since that date, fitted to aircraft as far apart as the F-104 Starfighter and F-22 Raptor. Also appears in the iconic Phalanx Proximity Weapon System (CIWS) carried by many warships and also adapted to a land-based air defense system.
While gun kills are far more economically and logistically preferable, saving more expensive and less expendable weapons for more sophisticated threats, they force fighter crews to engage at very low levels against comparatively slow-moving targets. This presents a much higher level of risk than launching an air-to-air missile from a standstill: if successful it is very effective, but if mistakes are made this could quickly lead to the loss of both the aircraft and, more importantly, its highly trained pilot.
Platforms like the An-28 mitigate this by making the weapon trainable: the aircraft can fly straight and level while the crew points the weapon at the target. For an F-16, the pilot must point the nose of his plane at the target while taking into account the high risk of collateral damage. If an attack is carried out from the same or lower altitude, stray 20mm shells could unintentionally cause serious damage to the terrain and even threaten civilian lives. Instead, the ideal would be to carry out an attack from above, heading towards the ground, ensuring that stray bullets impact harmlessly on the ground.
Footage of a Ukrainian Air Force F-16 chasing a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile. pic.twitter.com/uiACe7SjFd
— OSINTtécnico (@Osinttechnical) December 22, 2025
It is not known exactly how many F-16s have so far been transferred into Ukrainian hands, although it is enough to carry out “daily” sorties that in January 2026 had resulted in More than 1,000 aerial shootdowns of drones and cruise missiles.. At least four F-16s have been lost, and three of these losses occurred during drone strikes. In three of these four known cases the pilot did not survive.
More F-16s, along with other aircraft in both the short and long term, are on the way, but the loss rate of current aircraft must remain sustainable by delicately balancing these higher-risk missions with the operational need to use these assets instead of other aircraft or ground-based air defenses (GBAD).
