Drone and Anti-Drones Manufacturers “Competed” in a Border Guard Unit in Ukraine’s Cherkassy Region

Border guards are constantly learning about technical innovations that can both protect the border and add to the arsenal of smugglers.

Border guards are constantly learning about technical innovations that can both protect the border and add to the arsenal of smugglers.

The border guards were helped to understand the modern capabilities of drones and drone interceptors by the manufacturers of the relevant equipment.

Thus, the other day representatives of the State company “Ukrspetseksport”, LLC “Research and Production Enterprise “Spaitech” (developer and manufacturer of innovative unmanned flying complexes from composite materials) and the company “NT Service” (Lithuanian company – manufacturer of radioelectronic complex of counteraction to drones) presented an unmanned flying vehicle and complex of counteraction to unmanned flying vehicles in practice.

The event was held in Cherkassy region at Major-General Ihor Momot Main Training Centre of the State Border Guard Service.

The law enforcers were able to test in practice the tactical and technical characteristics of the technical means declared by the manufacturers, the efficiency of their use and feasibility of their introduction in the operational and service activities of the border protection units.

At another event that recently took place in Zhytomyr region, the border guards were presented with light aircraft – gyroplanes. However, from manned aviation, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine now involves light helicopters and airplanes for aerial monitoring of the border. But this does not prevent the study of other types of aircraft used by foreign counterparts that could potentially be used by border violators.

It is worth noting that in today’s realities unmanned aviation is increasingly being used. Unmanned aerial systems (vehicles) in service with border guards are actively used for aerial monitoring of the state border, frontier areas, territorial sea, exclusive maritime economic zone of Ukraine, as well as in the area of joint forces operation and on the administrative border with the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

They help identify and detain not only border violators, but also boats on the water sections of the border, as well as counteract the illegal movement of goods across the border outside the checkpoints. In addition, with the help of drones, law enforcement officers also identify UAVs of offenders used in illegal activities.

As the Chairman of the State Border Guard Service recently noted in an interview with the RBC-Ukraine news agency, «We now have smugglers’ drones flying every night, on the Polish, the Slovak, the Hungarian, the Romanian sections of the border. In addition, several times a week we see flights of small aircraft. If anyone thinks that only cigarettes are being shipped, they are very wrong. Last month we detained a drone in Luhansk oblast with 18 kilograms of marijuana that they tried to transport from Ukraine to the Russian Federation. That is, first it is cigarette smuggling, then it is drug smuggling, and then it can be weapons».

It is worth noting that during the time the border guards have been using UAVs, the personnel of the Training Center for the Use and Operation of Unmanned Aerial Systems of the Main Personnel Training Center has trained (retrained) about 400 specialists in UAV operation.