Pierluigi Paganini January 10, 2016

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that the Russian Army received over 1,500 modern UAVs in the last four years.

Almost every government is increasing the adoption of drones within its military.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) represent a privileged option for military surveillance, reconnaissance and attack, these vehicles could be used also to improve the physical security of critical infrastructure or to conduct covert hacking operations on an Information Warfare context. According to Defense Ministry, Russia armed forces has already received over 1,500 drones over the last four years.

The Russian government is conducting a rearmament program for an overall investment of 19-trillion ruble ($260-billion). The ambitious program aims to modernize the 70-percent of Russian military by 2020, and Unmanned aerial vehicles have a crucial role in the modern military aviation.

“Over 1,500 modern unmanned aerial vehicles have been supplied to the armed forces over four years. The availability of UAV equipment in the armed forces grew almost ten times compared to 2011. Currently, the Russian army is armed with 1,720 UAV systems developed for various purposes,” the Defense Ministry’s Department of Media Affairs and Information said.

The Russian armed forces will be used the UAVs in reconnaissance missions, but the drones are very versatile and could be used for many other activities.

Drones are becoming even more popualr in Russian also among the population,  recently the Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a bill regulating drones, that has many similarities with the one adopted by the US Government.

“The law introduces norms on certification and registration of drones and specifies requirements on the security of their flights. All the drones with maximum take-off weight of 0.55 pounds should be registered. According to the explanatory note to the law, the bill aims to provide legal basis for usage of UAVs to meet the requirements of different economic sectors and to solve different tasks in the sphere of security and defense.” states the bill.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Russian Military, UAVs)