CNN’s Nic Robertson shows how Western technology used in drones is helping Russia to track and kill Ukrainian forces.
A Ukrainian technical intel officer shows inside a captured Russian Orlan-10 surveillance drone, revealing components from around the world.
The officer claimed that the drone’s cell phone tracker was US-made. He said that the engine was manufactured in Japan, and the thermal imaging module on the camera was produced in France after Russia had already invaded.
Other Russian drone parts come from countries including Austria, Germany, Taiwan and the Netherlands, the officer claimed.
The officer said his job is to follow every serial number to work out who made the part and alert allies to stop Russia’s drone techs from getting their hands on it.
Robertson noted that stopping the supply of these often commercial components won’t be easy, as Russia might have stockpiled parts and has a long history of evading sanctions.
The issue of Western parts in Russian drones is not a new problem. As early as 2017, researchers found Western-manufactured components in a Russian drone being flown over eastern Ukraine, The Washington Post reported.
Some of the components identified from that drone traveled to Russia through obscure middlemen and small trading companies, the paper said, whose businesses could be tough to track.
“The FBI has been tracking down Russian supply networks since 2014 and trying to close them down. So if they can, they will continue trying to side-step it. And it is a real problem because often these components are bought by legitimate companies,”
Samuel Cranny-Evans, RUSI research analyst, told CNN.
Ukraine’s military said that Russian drones’ thermal and infrared imaging and cell-phone tracking – many of the parts for which come from the West – are helping Russia locate and kill Ukrainian soldiers, per the CNN report.
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