Russia tripling its Israeli-made drones
Russia is seeking to triple the number of Israeli-made drones that it owns in a deal worth about $100 million for Israel Aircraft Industries. Russia is negotiating a second purchase of Israeli-made spy drones roughly twice the size of an initial $50 million sale announced in April, Israeli defence sources said on Monday.I have mixed feelings about this as I am sure many of you do. I would rather see Israel get something besides money for these drones: I'd like to see Russia cooperate in stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. So far there is no sign of that happening.
They said the new deal with state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) would be worth about $100 million and would feature improved surveillance equipment on the pilotless planes.
"The Russians are going for a triple upgrade of their fleet and its capabilities," a defence source said.
IAI declined to comment.
Russia's war with neighbouring Georgia in 2008 exposed an army with largely obsolete equipment and a lack of modern spy drones, defence analysts said.
While Georgia used Israeli drones during the five days of fighting, Russia had to rely mainly on its Tu-22 strategic bombers for battlefield intelligence.
Additionally, I'm not pleased to see Israel acting like Obama and abandoning Georgia, which was an ally for a long time. While it is often said that countries have interests rather than friends, I thought we were above that. Now I have my doubts.
The picture is Elbit's Hermes 450 drone.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:53 PM
1 Comments:
"Russia tripling its Israeli-made drones"
And will in the future be used against Israel .....sigh
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