Russia brought into the war in Ukraine a special UAV, developed by Moscow from the copyright purchased from Israel.
The Russian Defense Ministry earlier this week posted a video showing the Forpost-R armed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) firing at a Ukrainian MLRS multiple launch rocket system. A series of other videos posted on social networks shows that this UAV is considered quite effective when it comes to destroying many military targets and weapons of Ukraine in recent days, according to the Eurasian Times.
Forpost is a special UAV with a rather "arduous" development process. It is manufactured by the Ural Civil Aviation Plant based in Yekaterinburg, Russia (UZGA) based on the Searcher Mk II prototype of the Israeli company IAI. UZGA bought the production rights of IAI since 2011.
However, after relations between Russia and the West deteriorated, in 2016 Israel was said to have come under pressure from its US ally, and the IAI stopped shipping components for Forpost production to Russia.
Faced with this situation, Russia has decided to open a program to produce its domestic version of Forpost. Initially, Forpost only acted as an "eye" in the air when performing reconnaissance, surveillance, target information gathering, artillery fire adjustment... Then, Russia decided to add the attack feature. on their UAVs.
In January 2017, UZGA announced that the Forpost project was not abandoned, but on the contrary, the domestic and improved version of this UAV will be ready to be delivered in 2019. The program has finished on time, with the version. Forpost-R is equipped with Russian-made engine, electro-optical system, electronics, data link and it runs on domestic software.
Forpost-R is also equipped with a solid fuselage to enhance survivability on the battlefield. This UAV flew for 18 hours with a take-off weight of 500 kg, a range of 400 km and an altitude of 6 km.
After becoming an attack UAV, Russia has integrated a number of weapons on this aircraft, including 9M133 anti-tank guided missiles, KAB-20 guided bombs and "dumb bombs" - ie types. Bombs do not have control systems like smart bombs.
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