Russia claims to have successfully ‘intercepted’ a British Banshee Jet-80 kamikaze jet drone and obtained its secrets.
The FSB security service claim to have overridden its flight plan as it was on a mission, and landed the UAV.
‘After a controlled landing of the drone, explosives experts neutralised the warhead weighing 7 kilograms,’ said the Kremlin’s official newspaper outlet Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
‘Experts studied the electronic content of the UAV and determined that it was aimed at a large civil infrastructure facility in Mariupol.’
No specific details were given about the ‘decoding’ and the precise target, if any, nor how it was intercepted.
Russia claims to have successfully ‘intercepted’ a British Banshee Jet-80 kamikaze jet drone and obtained its secrets, releasing pictures of the flying device (pictured)
No specific details were given about the ‘decoding’ and the precise target, if any, nor how it was intercepted
The FSB security service claim to have overridden the flight plan of the Banshee drone as it was on a mission, and landed the UAV
The Banshee drones are capable of flying at 400mph with a range of 60 miles
Denis Pushilin, Putin-appointed head of the occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine, said: ‘The Russian FSB Directorate for the DPR [Donetsk People’s republic], with units of the military commandant’s office and the National Guard, in the Novoazovsky district intercepted a British Banshee Jet-80 kamikaze jet drone.’
He accused ‘Western terrorists, along with their Ukrainian accomplices’ of seeking to ‘organise a monstrous terrorist attack and blame Russia for everything’.
Pushilin said: ‘Against the backdrop of a major defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces in Avdiivka, the Kyiv regime is making any attempt to destabilise the situation in the republic [occupied region].
‘Thanks to the coordinated work of our special services, we were able to prevent a large-scale terrorist attack with human casualties.’
The Banshee drones are capable of flying at 400mph with a range of 60 miles.
They can fly at up to 30,000ft.
They are normally intended as aerial target drones simulating threats during military drills.
It is unclear if Ukraine has repurposed the Banshee Jet-80 into kamikaze strike drones, as the Russian claims suggest.
Another theory is that they were used to detect Russian air defences and the plane had come down close to the frontline and this is how Putin’s forces obtained it.
There is no sign of damage from Russian air defences.