Let's move on to the issue covered by the President today and commented on by the General Staff. Special engineering training was required to create and use UAVs which attacked Russian facilities in Syria. Military experts have concluded that terrorists got the necessary technologies from abroad, with the scale of the threat going beyond Syria.
Dmitry Petrov is reporting.
Obviously, these combat drones were made in an improvised manner, but from industrial kits that can be purchased at retail. It can be seen by the wing airfoil made of foam. Apparently, it was produced at a factory. Each drone had a gasoline engine of about 50 cubic centimeters, most likely, for a scooter or lawn mower. The screws are of industrial production too.
After a detailed study, experts of the Ministry of Defense conclude that special knowledge in aerodynamics and radio electronics is required to create such drones. Guidance on a target, navigation calculations, a program of automatic group flight constitute a complicated engineering task.
Alexander Novikov, Head of the Russian General Staff's Office for UAV Development: "The coordinates laid down in the UAV control programs are more accurate than the generally available data that can be obtained, for example, on the Internet".
It could be even the military intelligence data. But who gave them to the terrorists? Everything points to the fact that it was a well-planned and prepared operation, especially given that during the attack of drones an American reconnaissance aircraft was on duty near the Syrian coast.
Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman: "Don't confuse primitively assembling drones presented to you with the engineering solutions laid down during their development".
Supposedly improvised bombs are also a fruit of joint efforts. They are too similar to the NATO 60mm mortar mines. Metal balls are damaging elements. The explosive is pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or TEN. It's far more powerful than RDX.
Alexander Novikov, Head of the Russian General Staff's Office for UAV Development: "The mentioned explosive produced by a number of countries, including Ukraine, at the Shostka Chemical Reagents Plant. It can't be manufactured in an improvised manner or extracted from other ammunition".
Now special studies are being conducted to establish the country of origin.
Dmitry Petrov, Victor Mamayev, Valery Ivanov, and Valeriya Bliznyakova for Vesti.
