Kazakhstan's New Drones

Irkut Corp.

The Irkut-3 UAV

Kazakhstan is testing some new unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, aka drones) from Russia, a military official has said. Kazakhstan had tried out UAVs from France and Israel but they didn't do well in the cold weather, said General-Major Almaz Dzhumakeev, commander of Kazakhstan's 36th Air Assault Brigade:

"It's necessary to strengthen the reconnaissance units. There will be a competition, a selection, we will see which is acceptable for us and our climate, taking into account the wind and the cold. There have been UAVs which took off, flew 20 meters and crashed because it was so cold..."
According to the general-major, in 2014 after the selection of the supplier country the UAVs will enter service in the armed reconnaissance units of the armed forces of Kazakhstan. "Most likely, next year they will enter service. Where there is reconnaissance, there will be UAVs," he noted.

Kazakhstan has plans to produce its own drones, and also apparently has plans to buy some small reconnaissance drones from the Russian Irkut Corporation.It's also been looking at Chinese UAVs. It's not clear from the recent news stories, but it seems likely that the Irkuts are what Maj-Gen Dzhumakeev was talking about. From the website Russian Aviation, last October:

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