What are these new kamikaze drones made of sticks and powered by AliExpress engines (photo)
The use of such drones first became known six months ago, but was officially recognized only now
According to the official report of the Air Force of Ukraine, on the night of October 22, 2023, Russian invaders fired eight S-300 missiles from the temporarily occupied parts of Donetsk region and Belgorod region of the Russian Federation, one X-59 missile from a Su-34 that was in the airspace of the temporarily occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia region, three Shahed-136 kamikaze drones and two “unidentified drones” at the territory of our country.
Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat later explained what these “unidentified drones” were.
In particular, he said that the Russians have begun to produce an unspecified type of UAV, which, on the one hand, is primitive in design – literally “made of sticks” – and, on the other hand, can carry several kilograms of explosives and act as a kamikaze.
It is also noteworthy that such drones are powered by engines purchased literally on AliExpress. And apparently, here the Air Force spokesperson simply officially recognized the fact that the Russian invaders used wooden-hulled drones, which resemble “flying shelves” and were first recorded in May 2023.
In particular, on May 4, 2023, the Joint Forces Command reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Sumy region “landed” a drone of an unknown type and primitive design that could be used for reconnaissance.
This was indicated by the presence of “civilian” cameras on board the drone. Other details about the design and equipment of this UAV were unknown at the time. But it is worth recalling that even then there were talks that the occupiers were using these “flying shelves” to “spam” our air defense in the border areas.
In June 2023, the first details on the equipment of these “flying stacks” appeared, which showed that such “stick drones” are actually a cheap and effective solution for performing a variety of segmented tasks, such as the possible visual fixation of our air defense assets at the final or other points of the flight route.
Interestingly, one of the “grounded” drones of this type had an angular reflector on it, which could indicate that the Russians deliberately build these drones to be visible to radar and thus provoke the activity of our air defense systems. In addition, there was reason to believe that the Iridium satellite modem could be used to control the flight of this vehicle.
And this is all on a design that uses an ordinary plastic bottle instead of a fuel tank. But of course, the use of a two-motor scheme, the first of which works as a pulling motor and the second as a pushing motor, looks original in its own way.
