Posted on November 17, 2008 - by Venik

Exploding UAVs in Georgia

After nearly four months of ridiculous allegations against Russia, Saakashvili’s regime still has the capacity to surprise. In the latest PR move, Georgian so-called leadership claimed that a Russian UAV crashed on its territory and later exploded, killing two policemen and injuring eight others. If this claim was true, this would have been the first such incident in the history of unmanned aviation.

Here’s the Georgian vision of the “incident”, as reported by VOA News: a small UAV launched by the Russians from South Ossetia landed (intentionally, I guess) near the tiny mountainous village of Plavi (too small to be marked on any military map I have, but known to be located near the border with South Ossetia). A group of Georgian policemen and sappers arrived on the scene. Georgians say that the UAV contained an explosive device that killed two and injured eight others. Truly, Kremlin’s deviousness knows no bounds.

I guess Saakashvili is really feeling the heat from the opposition to be resolrting to idiotic stories like this. He needs to drum up anti-Russian sentiment to stay in power and, since most Georgian villagers can’t tell a UAV from a jackhammer, any ridiculous allegation will serve this purpose. And, since the aircraft exploded, nobody can expect Georgia to provide any physical evidence of the UAV’s existence. A word of caution to Saakashvili: should one of those Russian UAVs land in his Tbilisi office – do not poke it with a stick.

Russian Pchela-1T UAV

To account for every Georgian claim of a crashed Russian UAVs, the Russian army must have a UAV launcher hidden under every rock in South Ossetia. Georgia seems to be some sort of a Bermuda triangle for Russian aerial drones. For short-range recon flights Russia uses the Stroi-P launcher/control system with the small Yak Pchela-1T prop-driven UAV that has operational radius of about 50km and provides real-time surveillance using a high-resolution video camera. Pchela-1T is not equiped with any self-destruct mechanisms. Russia does not operate any armed UAVs.

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