Russia produces new kamikaze drone with Chinese engine, European intelligence sources say | World News

Russia began production of a new long-range combat drone last year, intelligence sources say

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In the year to July, more than 2,500 Garpiya drones were produced, intelligence reports show

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New Russian-made drone equipped with Chinese engines and parts, documents show

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Garpiya would reduce Russia's dependence on Iranian drones, says expert

By Anthony Deutsch, Tom Balmforth

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia last year began producing a new long-range combat drone called the Garpiya-A1 using Chinese engines and parts. The drone was used in the war in Ukraine, according to two European intelligence sources and documents seen by Reuters.

The information – which included a production contract for the new drone, company correspondence about the manufacturing process and financial documents – showed that IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey, produced more than 2,500 Garpiyas from July 2023 to July 2024.

The existence of the new Russian drone with Chinese technology has not been reported so far. IEMZ Kupol and Almaz-Antey did not respond to requests for comment. The two intelligence sources said the Garpiya, which means harpy in Russian, has been used against military and civilian targets in Ukraine, causing damage to critical infrastructure and civilian and military casualties.

They told Reuters they were images from Ukraine of the wreck of a Garpiya, without giving further details. Reuters found information to support this conclusion, but could not independently confirm the images.

The sources asked not to identify themselves or their agency because the information is confidential. They also asked not to disclose certain details about the documents, such as dates.

Samuel Bendett, an associate professor at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, DC-based think tank, told Reuters that the Garpiya incident, if confirmed, would mark a move away from Russia's reliance on Iranian long-range drone developers.

“If this happens, it could indicate that Russia can now rely more on domestic development and, of course, on China, as both sides in this war rely on many Chinese components for drone production,” he said.

Iran, which did not comment for this article, has supplied more than a thousand Shahed kamikaze drones to Russia since the invasion began in February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in May last year.

They were used to deplete Ukraine's air defenses and hit infrastructure far from the front line. Iran has repeatedly denied sending drones to Russia for use in Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement to Reuters that Beijing strictly controls the export of items with potential military applications, including drones. “Regarding the Ukraine crisis, China has always advocated promoting peace talks and a political solution,” the statement said. It added that there are no international restrictions on China's trade with Russia.

NATO CALLS: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last week called on China to end its support for Russia's war in Ukraine, saying Beijing's aid was a key factor in the continuation of the conflict.

The Garpiya “strongly resembles the Shahed” but has several distinguishing features, including a unique bolt-on fin and Limbach L-550 E engines, the European agency said in a statement to Reuters. The engine, originally designed and manufactured by a German company, is now produced in China by a local firm, Xiamen Limbach. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Reuters examined a contract worth over 1 billion rubles signed in the first quarter of 2023 between the Russian Defense Ministry and Kupol to build a factory to produce the drones.

The intelligence sources said a former cement factory in Izhevsk in the Udmurtia Republic in western Russia – which was bought by Kupol in 2020 – is being used to manufacture the drones. Using a video of a Russian drone production facility posted on the messaging app Telegram, Reuters was able to identify the site as the Izhevsk factory. The color and design of the beams and the interior architecture of the building matched archive images of the site. The location of the archive images could be verified using nearby buildings, roads and trees, which matched street views and satellite imagery.

A prototype of the Garpiya was launched in the first half of 2023, company statements show. Production reached several hundred in the second half of 2023 and doubled to around 2,000 in the first half of 2024, the agency said.

According to defense analyst Bendett, 2,500 drones a year would make up a significant portion of Russian production. Ukraine's top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said last month that Russia had launched nearly 14,000 attack drones since its invasion in February 2022, including the Iranian Shahed and the Russian-made Geran-2 and Lancet drones. Company documents from the second quarter of 2023 seen by Reuters showed that supplier TSK Vektor was sourcing parts from Chinese companies for assembly at the Kupol site; 800 Chinese engines were also to be supplied to the new plant, where the production line was due to be ready by the end of the quarter.

TSK Vektor did not respond to a request for comment.

In the statement, the European intelligence agency expressed concern that Chinese companies continued to supply components that enabled Russia to produce large kamikaze drones. “The export of essential components to Russia must be stopped,” it said.

USA expresses concern

Washington has repeatedly warned Beijing about its support for Russia's arms industry. It has imposed hundreds of sanctions aimed at limiting Moscow's ability to use certain technologies for military purposes. The State Department and White House did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

In July, China announced that it would tighten export regulations for drones starting September 1. Beijing said US sanctions against Chinese companies in connection with the Ukraine war were “illegal and unilateral”.

The Garpiya has a takeoff weight of less than 300 kilograms and a maximum range of 1,500 kilometers, according to the production contract between Kupol and the Russian Defense Ministry – similar to the Iranian Shahed-136 drone that Moscow has used extensively in Ukraine.

The Washington Post reported in August that Russia was looking to increase production of a domestic version of the Shahed-136, known as the Geran-2, at a plant in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan. Ukraine said in April that it had carried out a drone strike on a drone factory in Alabuga.

A third document seen by Reuters – a delivery status update between broker TSK Vektor and manufacturer Kupol from the first quarter of 2024 – detailed an order for 100 axles, carburettors and other Limbach engine parts supplied by two other Chinese companies: Juhang Aviation Technology and Redlepus Vector Industries, both based in Shenzhen.

Juhang, which was subjected to British sanctions in February and US sanctions in May for supplying drone equipment to Russia, and Redlepus did not respond to requests for comment.

Customs data obtained from a commercial supplier that records and compiles the information showed that from April 2022 to December 2023, TSK Vector imported goods worth $36.3 million from China's Juhang Aviation Technology and $6.2 million from Redlepus TSK Vector Industrial Shenzhen Co Ltd.

According to customs documents, the goods included aircraft engines, transistors, electronic modules, connectors, plugs and sockets, spare parts and components, most of them marked “for general civil purposes”, “for general industrial purposes” and “for general civil use”.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications.