The French company Thales supplied Russia with its Catherine FC thermal imagers for the BMD-4M
Pavlo Kashchuk, known as the founder of the infocar.ua project and host of the YouTube channel of the same name, published a video on it, shot after Bucha’s liberation from the ruscism occupiers. It shows not only traces of war crimes with the killing of civilians, but also abandoned equipment by retreating troops, which found French-made thermal imagers supplied by Thales Group after the imposition of sanctions against Russia.
The video begins with a demonstration of the cemetery of civilian cars taken to one place in Bucha. Paul draws attention to the holes from the 30-mm gun in the trunk lid of the Renault Sandero (in Europe, the car is sold as a Dacia Sandero) and their accuracy, despite the fact that the shots were fired from a great distance.
This 30-mm gun is installed on the BMD-4M (landing combat vehicle), entered service with the Russian army in 2016 (ie after the imposition of sanctions banning the supply of dual-use equipment to Russia). One of these BMD-4Ms was dropped by retreating racist troops in Bucha:
The modernization of the BMD-4M consists in the installation of equipment for the gunner, taking into account the stabilized sight in two planes, which has thermal imaging and rangefinder channels. This equipment allows the machine to fire at any time of day in any weather.
The equipment removed from the BMD-4M indicates a violation by Thales Group of the ban on the supply of dual-use equipment (ie, that can be used for military purposes).
The Thales logo is indicated on the equipment dismantled by the combat vehicle
In particular, a thermal imager is used, which allows the arrow to see the target in the dark, Catherine FC, made by this company. “It is allegedly going to the Russian plant in Vologda. That is, according to French drawings from components bought from the French,” – Kashchuk said in the video. — “And this is just one of the schemes that allow Western companies to circumvent the embargo and continue to supply the Russian army of evil with the latest military technology.”
According to the specifications, the Catherine FC thermal imager (note the date of manufacture – June 2016) allows you to create images with a resolution of 768×576 pixels and operates at a distance of up to 2.5 kilometers. The module itself weighs less than 3 kilograms with dimensions of 258x172x100 mm and is certified in accordance with the military standard MIL STD 810.
About Thales Group
Thales Group (pronounced “Thales”) has a history dating back to 1892 and until 2010 was called Thomson-CSF and named after the ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus. Its headquarters are located in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris. It employs about 68,000 people in more than 50 countries. In 2011, the company’s turnover was €13 billion. Fortune magazine ranked it among the world’s 500 largest companies, ranking 475th. Thales Group is ranked 11th in the world among companies engaged in the supply of military equipment. Since December 2014, Thales Group has been headed by Patrice Caine, who is also a member of the Board of Directors of Naval Group (since 2015) and L’Oréal (since 2018) and has received awards – bronze medal of national defense and the Order of Merit, and is also a cavalier of the Legion of Honor.
The fact that 27.1% of the company’s shares belong to the French government casts a shadow over the entire country, which appears to be a sponsor of terrorism that supports Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.
