Ukrainian War Developments

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Phead128

Phead128

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KYli said:
Suck it up loser.
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Mar 31, 2022,06:15am EDT|303 views
Chinese Drones Come With Political Baggage But Ukraine Buys Thousands Anyway
Thomas Brewster

Associate editor at Forbes, covering cybercrime, privacy, security and surveillance.

The unmanned aerial vehicles are too valuable against Russian invaders for Ukrainians to be all that concerned about whether manufacturer DJI has close ties to the Chinese government.

Drones made by DJI, a $15 billion Chinese company, have become such an important part of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s unprovoked invasion that officials in the besieged country are setting aside concerns about the considerable political baggage that comes with them.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and chief of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, who has become something of a media star in the last month for his ingenuity and defiance in the face of overwhelming odds, posted photos on Monday of new DJI Mavic 3 unmanned aerial vehicles in what looks like the back of a van.

Federov said Ukraine had bought 2,372 quadcopters and 11 military unmanned aerial vehicles for $6.8 million. The money was donated by the Come Back Alive fund, which has been accepting donations for the defense of Ukraine since Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea.

China hasn’t chosen sides on the war in Ukraine and has refused to condemn the slaughter of civilians ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. That’s put DJI and its billionaire owner, Frank Wang, in a bind. The company insists its drones are not intended for military use despite all the evidence to the contrary.

“We do not support any use of our products that harm people’s lives, rights, or interests, as we have always reiterated in our products’ Terms of Use and other public statements,” said a DJI spokesperson. “We do not provide technical support when our products are used for military purposes.”

Ukrainians are also sensitive to the charges, true or not, that DJI is under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party and could be collecting data on the use of its drones. “Every Chinese firm [is] under the Chinese government,” said the spokesperson for a unit supporting the Ukraine military called Aerorozvidka, which uses drones. “We use them but we’re not going to make any ads for DJI.”

DJI has been accused before of having a chummy relationship with Beijing and has long brushed off those worries. It denies its drones send data to the Chinese government and stresses that users can turn off internet settings to stop information going anywhere. DJI has also had to fend off claims that its technology was used to support human rights abuses. The U.S. put the company on an export control list in December, implicating DJI in the persecution of China’s Uyghur minority. Americans were barred from trading in the company’s securities, a year after DJI was barred from buying U.S. technology. DJI has previously said it’s done nothing to justify the U.S. actions.

Ukraine Armed Forces using DJI drones.
The Ukraine Armed Forces has been open about its use of DJI drones. It's likely they're being used for aerial surveillance across Ukraine. UKRAINE ARMED FORCES
Fedorov’s office declined to comment on how the drones were used. The Ukrainian military didn’t immediately respond to requests for an explanation.

“DJI promotes civilian drone applications that benefit society,” a DJI spokesperson said. “In addition to bringing new tools to aerial photographers and filmmakers, we see more and more firefighters, search-and-rescue teams, and other public-safety agencies around the world using our products to save lives.”

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s Fedorov called on DJI to shut down Russia’s use of drone-detection technology known as an AeroScope and to provide any information, such as the location and owner, of any Russian drones in Ukraine. DJI said it couldn’t do that, adding that it was possible it could shut down all of its tech in given geographies, but the action would affect Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, too. It also denied an accusation that it was actively degrading the operability of DJI technology being used by Ukrainians.

As Victor Zhora, deputy head of Ukraine’s State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection, told Forbes, that while the government does have concerns about DJI’s links to China, “it’s a complex issue.” Zhora didn’t immediately respond to requests to elaborate on his earlier comments.

Whatever DJI’s policies, and regardless of concerns around its relationship with the Chinese government, it isn’t stopping Ukraine from acquiring the company’s devices to support its defense against Russian invaders, dragging DJI into the conflict whether it likes it or not.
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I have a DJI Mini 2, this thing is amazing in terms of endurance (25-30 mins), distance (up to 10km range), stealth (tiny <250g), speed (up to 17mph), video quality (4K video), and ease of use (auto return-to-home).

If you have a mass fleet of DJI Mini 2 with mass triple-chargers, you can have near constant monitoring of an large urban area from dawn to dusk. Totally affordable for a nation-state like Ukraine or Russia.

The DJI Mini 2 is so tiny, it's almost virtually undetectable by line of sight at 30m(100ft) and I usually fly like over 120m(400ft) and max out at 500m(1600ft). I wonder if normal radar is optimizdd detect something this tiny.
 
plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Abominable said:
Putin has doubled down on the threat. He's going to cut off European gas tomorrow if he doesn't get paid in roubles.

I don't see a win for NATO here. If they agree to pay in roubles, Putin wins. If they refuse, they destroy their own countries and Putin wins more.

I expect some last minute European begging to China again.
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I would lol so hard if in the end, the Euros negotiated a compromise deal to pay for oil and gas in Yuan as a face saving fig leaf to avoid having to pay in rubles.
 
A

Abominable

Major
Registered Member
Darkon112 said:
Are their actually any Russian war crimes ? Bar Ukrainian claims that are next to worthless. And especially if we apply anglo standards seen in Libya, Serbia and Irak ?
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None that I've come across. There have been thousands of claims from Ukrainians but little evidence.
 
plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Darkon112 said:
Are their actually any Russian war crimes ? Bar Ukrainian claims that are next to worthless. And especially if we apply anglo standards seen in Libya, Serbia and Irak ?
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Have not seen anything conclusive, especially in light of deliberate action by Ukrainian forces and fakes.

The overwhelming majority, if not all war crimes allegations against the Russians are around hitting ‘civilian’ areas and buildings with heavy weapons. But all evidence of Ukrainian military using those same areas and buildings as staging grounds or from which to fire weapons are conveniently ignored.

Elensky, as I’m sure how he now calls himself, is proving to be a cruel and heartless and utterly incompetent leader who time and again chooses to enact policies and make choices that needlessly and deliberately causes more death and suffering amongst his own civilians just to score some empty propaganda points against the Russians with civilian casualties.

War is ugly and he has a loosing hand, but there are still plenty of options for him to have waged his war without needing to resort to such cruel, and worse, totally meritless tactics at such great and terrible and needless cost to his own civilian population.
 
D

Darkon112

Junior Member
Registered Member
Abominable said:
Typical of America to send an American Indian to talk to India. It's like they are saying to Indians "this is how we want you to behave".

Indians will probably look at this guy as a traitor and him to get lost.
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Also Hindus hate to be told what to do especially by anglo's. And it has already backfired looking on twitter.
FriedButter said:
Given there is 200,000 troops at the bare minimum. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising if there was at least one. You can’t expect every soldier to follow the rules you know.
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Good point.
 
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