Nazar Bokii lost both hands and an eye to a Russian drone. The Ukrainian veteran returned to shooting and helped a workshop design an adaptive rifle, Army TV’s program “What’s that gun” reports.
The adaptive rifle illustrates Ukraine’s bottom-up pattern of front-line military innovation, where soldiers identify needs and workshops implement solutions, while the state has fitted more than 44,000 people with prosthetics since Russia’s full-scale war.
After losing his hands, Bokii continued visiting the shooting range regularly. The drive to return to his hobby became the impetus for the adaptive design. The inspiration came from an unexpected source — a German machine gun with a trigger system designed to be fired while wearing winter gloves.
Bokii brought German design reference to Ukrainian workshop
“I took this idea, came to a Ukrainian workshop and said: ‘Make me one like that,'” Bokii recalled.
The workshop did not just implement his request. They further modernized the design, installing an enlarged safety catch and an enlarged charging handle to make the weapon easier to operate without hands.
The result works in motion, Bokii said.
“It’s convenient for me, as I can actually shoot dynamically on the move and so on. But in general, it’s also convenient for many people who have hands and fingers,” he added.
FPV drone operator wounded in 2025
Bokii joined the Ukrainian army in 2022 as an infantryman with the 135th Territorial Defense Battalion, he told the “Life After” veteran project in a separate interview. He later became an FPV drone operator and served combat missions in eastern Ukraine, including Kharkiv Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
In 2025, during one such mission, a Russian drone scored a direct hit on Bokiy. He lost both hands and an eye. He drives a vehicle, trains, and continues to help develop solutions for other veterans with amputations.
Adaptive design lands in a country reshaped by drone-strike amputations
More than 44,000 people have received prosthetics under Ukraine’s state program since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Minister of Social Policy, Family and Unity Denys Uliutin said in May 2026. The figure is a partial measure with earlier estimates of Ukrainians who had lost one or more limbs running from 20,000 to 50,000, a scale approaching World War I levels, and the number has grown since.
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