Ashish Ranjan
Sunday, the Ukrainian military shot down a modernized and armed Mugin-5 drone manufactured in China in eastern Ukraine. CNN reported that the Mugin-5 drone, manufactured by Mugin Limited of Xiamen, China, was fired down by AK-47s in the war-torn country over the weekend.
These unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are also known as “Alibaba drones” due to the fact that they can be purchased for up to $15,000 on the Chinese e-commerce websites Alibaba and Taobao.The manufacturer of the drone, Mugin Limited, verified to CNN that it was their airframe and described the incident as “extremely unfortunate.” Mugin Limited confirmed that the aircraft discovered in eastern Ukraine near the city of Sloviansk was one of its own.
The drone contained a bomb weighing approximately 20 kilograms, which Ukrainian soldiers detonated later.Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this is the most recent instance of a civilian drone being retrofitted and armed, a sign of the swiftly shifting patterns of warfare.
Saturday night, around 2:00 a.m., the 111th Brigade of the Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces heard a drone overhead and saw a blinking light.Maksim, a 35-year-old territorial defense fighter, told “The UAV was flying at such a low altitude that it was close enough for hand-held weapons to bring it down.”
The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to comment on the incident.Additionally, Poland will be the first NATO nation to deploy fighter jets to Ukraine.The weaponized commercial drone lacked a camera, so it could not be used for surveillance. Chris Lincoln-Jones, an expert on drone warfare, stated that experts believed it could have been employed as a “dumb bomb.”
Chris Lincoln-Jones, a retired British Army officer, stated that this particular drone would be significantly more effective if it contained a competent camera.He added, “This appears to be an extremely crude, unsophisticated, and not very technologically advanced method of conducting operations.”
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a military invasion of Ukraine, both Russia and Ukraine have employed drones in the conflict. Drones are used for surveillance, to locate hostile targets, and to guide artillery fire in their direction.
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NR Jenzen-Jones, an arms and munitions intelligence specialist, explains, “Both Russia and Ukraine have utilized commercially available Chinese platforms like this during the conflict, including in combat roles.”In January, officials in the Russian-held eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk claimed in a Telegram message that they had shot down a Ukrainian Mugin-5.
