In the background of one of the photos featuring pilots from the Army Aviation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a Mi-24 in camouflage, typical for the armed forces of North Macedonia, was spotted.
This suggests that it is indeed one of the 12 helicopters that the government of North Macedonia announced it would transfer to Ukraine back in spring 2023, specifically mentioning 10 units of Mi-24V and two units of Mi-24K (the artillery spotter variant).
Therefore, it has been over 1.5 years since the public announcement regarding the transfer of these helicopters to the Armed Forces of Ukraine until their first public appearance, but this is quite logical when considering the known status of the Mi-24 fleet in the North Macedonian army at the beginning of 2023.
It is worth recalling that as of 2023, the Macedonian Army Aviation had only two Mi-24V in service, while another four helicopters were simply in storage. The remaining six helicopters had long been put into conservation and were primarily used as "parts donors."
In this context, we can assume that the Mi-24 helicopters received from North Macedonia were utilized by the Armed Forces of Ukraine as follows: two operational machines went into immediate use, a few machines could have been restored from available components, and the "remaining" parts were used for "cannibalizing spare parts."
For the sake of fairness, our Army Aviation rarely "shows off" any interesting details or machines in its fleet.
As an illustration, we can mention that in May 2024, our helicopter pilots "spotted" a rare Mi-24VP, equipped with a rotating mount featuring a twin 23-mm aircraft cannon, which clearly had been in service with the Army Aviation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine even before February 2022.
It is also worth noting that in addition to the aforementioned Mi-24s, North Macedonia provided significant military aid to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including all four available Su-25 attack aircraft (which were in conservation) and all of its T-72 tanks, totaling 31 units.