The Mil Mi-24 (NATO reporting name 'Hind') is a large helicopter gunship and low-capacity troop transport produced by Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and operated from 1972 by the Soviet Air Force, its successors, and over thirty other nations. In October 2007, the Russian Air Force announced it would replace its 250 Mi-24 helicopter gunships with 300 more modern Mi-28s and possibly Ka-50s by 2015.
More common unofficial nicknames were “Crocodile”, due to the helicopter’s new camouflage scheme and “Glass”, because of the flat glass plates which surrounded the three place cockpit of the Mi-24A.