A Chinese-made commercial Drone which has been retrofitted and weaponized has been fired into Ukraine.
The Mugin-5, available for sale on Alibaba – Chinas equivalent of the Amazon – was taken out of the sky by AK-47s in the war-torn country over the weekend.
The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was produced by a Chinese manufacturer based in the port city of Xiamen, on China’s east coast.
The drone was shot down near the city of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine
(Army of Ukraine/CNN)
Mugin Limited, the company that makes the drone, confirmed that the craft spotted near the city of Sloviansk, eastern Ukraine, was one of its own. The company described the incident as “deeply unfortunate”.
Mugin-5 drones are available on Alibaba and other Chinese marketplaces such as Taobao for around £12,500, tech bloggers say.
Fighters from the 111th Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine heard the drone overhead and saw a flashing light at 02:00 on Saturday morning.
“From the sound, from the signal light, the troops fired a lot at it and shot down the UAV,” Maksim, a 35-year-old territorial defense fighter, told CNN.
Maksim said the UAV was flying at a very low altitude – close enough to bring it down with hand-held weapons.
The drone did not have a camera attached, meaning it was not used for surveillance. Experts suggested it could have been used as a “dumb bomb”.
The drone shooting comes days after an incident involving a US Reaper drone and a Russian jet (file photo)
(US Air Force/AFP/Getty)
“This particular drone that we’ve been looking at would be much more effective if it had a decent camera in it,” said Chris Lincoln-Jones, a retired British army officer.
Mr Lincoln-Jones said the discovery of the drone added further evidence to the theory that Russia is not the military superpower the world might have expected.
“This appears to be a very crude, unsophisticated, not very technologically advanced way of conducting operations,” he added.
Both Russia and Ukraine have used drones in combat since Vladimir Putin launched his illegal war last February.
They are used for surveillance purposes and to locate enemy targets and direct artillery fire at them.
A Ukrainian soldier equips a drone with grenades in the area of the heaviest fighting with the Russian invaders in Bakhmut, Donetsk
(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
Previously, observers might have had to spend 20 or 30 minutes pinpointing a target, Dr Jack Watling, a defense analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC in January.
Now, however, he says: “Russian forces can take their weapons against the enemy within just three to five minutes after an Orlan-10 drone detects the target.”
Experts say the biggest problem with using drones in combat is that they are large, slow and easy to shoot down.