Israel canceling UAV sale to Russia
In April, I reported that Israel planned to sell unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's or drones) to Russia. Now it's reported that Israel will not go ahead with that sale. Israel does not plan to sell Russia its most advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), defense officials said Monday, after a top Russian official said that the 12 Moscow recently purchased from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) would be used for study, to build similar models domestically.I don't know why the IAF is suddenly waking up now. The Russians said the same thing in May.
In a $53 million deal signed recently, Russia will receive two models of IAI's low-tier UAVs - the I-view MK150 tactical UAV and the Searcher Mk II medium-range UAV.
In an interview with the RIA Novosti news agency on Monday, Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, deputy head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, revealed that the main goal of the deal with Israel was to study the technology in order to build the drones domestically.
"We must take their know-how and put it to practical use [in developing our own craft]," Dzirkaln was quoted as saying.
The picture at the top is of Elbit's Hermes 450 drone.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:31 PM
2 Comments:
Wasn't one of the objectives of the sale to prevent the sale of S-300s to Syria? What now?
I guess they felt the terms of the sale weren't favorable to Israel. Why they moved cancel it now after a month (the Russians didn't change the arrangement) is a good question.
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