French and Chinese components: it became known what the enemy assembles one of the types of its reconnaissance drones from

Recently, cases of shooting down Russian reconnaissance drones “Merlin-BP” in the skies over Ukraine have become more frequent. This was reported by Defence Express, UNN.

According to the publication, back in 2021, the Russians positioned this UAV as an experimental one. It is believed that it was first shot down in the skies over Ukraine in the summer of 2022.

Defence Express writes that the Russians use French thermal imaging sensors in the vehicle, and a plastic canister was installed instead of the fuel tank, probably to reduce the cost of production. An Israeli lens and a Chinese starter generator were also found in the vehicle.

As for the tactical and technical characteristics of this reconnaissance UAV “Merlin-VR”, according to the publication, it has a maximum flight altitude of up to five thousand meters and a duration of stay in the air of up to ten hours, and can carry up to eight kilograms of payload.

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Oleksandr Ruvin, director of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, said that Russians are trying to modernize various types of weapons used to strike Ukraine. However, due to the shortage of high-tech components , the quality of these weapons is deteriorating.

We can say that both the component base and the munitions used by the Russian armed forces have changed significantly. For example, recently cruise missiles with dual warheads have been used: both high-explosive and cluster warheads. We monitor all the changes, see the modernization of various components and the degradation of certain parts used, in particular, electronic boards. For example, they have to replace high-tech components with X-101 missiles. They are installing guidance units from Orlan-10 drones on them