According to sources from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based defence think tank, IEMZ Kupol—a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey—has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China.
Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at IISS, told Reuters that if confirmed, the delivery of UAVs from China to Russia would be a significant development.
“If you look at what China is known to have delivered so far, it was mostly dual-use goods – components, sub-components, that could be used in weapon systems, but what we haven’t really seen, at least in the open source, are documented transfers of whole weapon systems.”
According to reports to the Russian Defence Ministry from Kupol, the G3 can travel about 2,000km (1,200 miles) with a payload of 50kg (110 pounds).
Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said last month that Russia has fired nearly 14,000 strike drones since it invaded in February 2022.
