Eastern Ukraine (CNN) As we drove deep into the forest, the silence between the towering pines and clear blue sky was shattered every few seconds by the sound of distant explosions from the frontline fighting for eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldiers led us through the forest on foot and eventually brought us to a clearing where they showed us the wreckage of an armed drone they allegedly shot down with their AK-47 automatic weapons over the weekend.
A Mugin-5, a commercial unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) made by a Chinese manufacturer, is shot down in eastern Ukraine.
The drone was a Mugin-5, a commercial unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) made by a Chinese manufacturer based in the port city of Xiamen on China’s east coast.
Some tech bloggers say the machines are known as “Alibaba drones” because they’ve been listed for sale on Chinese marketplace sites like Alibaba and Taobao for up to $15,000.
Mugin Limited confirmed to CNN that it was their airframe and described the incident as “deeply unfortunate”.
It is the latest example of a civilian drone being retrofitted and armament since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a sign of rapidly changing patterns of warfare.
“Along the front lines, we’re conducting aerial reconnaissance basically all the time,” said Maksim, a 35-year-old territory defender who asked to use only his first name.
low altitude
On Friday night, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told CNN that its agents on Russian territory had warned them that a UAV had been launched from there and was heading for a Ukrainian target.
The SBU then raised the alarm with military units in eastern Ukraine near the city of Sloviansk.
Around 2 a.m. Saturday morning, fighters from the 111th Territorial Defense Forces Brigade of Ukraine heard the drone overhead and even saw a light blinking on the plane.
“From the noise, from the signal light, the troops shot at it a lot and knocked out the UAV,” Maksim said.
Maksim said the UAV was flying at a very low altitude — close enough to bring it down with handheld weapons.
Ukrainian fighters said the Mugin-5 they shot down had been retrofitted to carry a bomb
Now lying on the forest floor, a bullet hole was visible on the nose of the machine, which had broken apart and sustained significant damage.
Nearby, the soldiers also showed us a small crater in the ground created by the UAV’s payload – a bomb weighing about 44 pounds (20 kilograms) that was later safely detonated by the militants.
In a video shared with CNN, the Ukrainian militants hooked up a US-made explosive device and then sprinted through the forest to their truck before driving off at high speed.
They then stopped their vehicle about 500 meters away and turned to film the violent impact of the blast – a reminder of the potential damage it could have caused had it struck its intended target on Ukrainian soil .
“Rough, Unaffected”
The armed commercial drone had no built-in camera, meaning it could not have been used for surveillance, and essentially resembles a “dumb bomb,” according to Chris Lincoln-Jones, a retired British Army officer and drone warfare specialist.
“This particular drone that we were looking at would be a lot more effective if it had a decent camera,” Lincoln-Jones said.
He added that the machine adds further evidence to the theory that Russia is not the military superpower the world expected.
“This seems like a very crude, simple, not very technologically advanced way of conducting operations,” he said, adding that the price of the machines is very cheap from a military point of view.
Ukrainian fighters said they shot down the low-flying drone with handguns
“The Ukrainians have to do what they can,” he added, so he would expect them to use “a lot more makeshift weapons.”
In January, officials in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine claimed in a Telegram post that they had shot down a Mugin-5 launched by Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian officials did not comment on this specific incident, but experts said there is evidence that both sides of the conflict have used this technology.
“Both Russia and Ukraine have used commercially available Chinese platforms like this throughout the course of the conflict, including in armed roles,” said NR Jenzen-Jones, arms and ammunition intelligence specialist and director of consulting firm Armament Research Services.
“In this case, the Mugin-5 Pro was likely deployed in a ‘bomber’ role rather than a one-way attack UAV (OWA, also known as ‘victim’),” said Jenzen-Jones.
The ammunition loaded on the drone was likely a “high explosive fragmentation” design that was “simple and not very aerodynamic,” he said.
Jenzen-Jones added that the triggering mechanism for the bomb appears to have been made using 3D-printed components, suggesting the UAV was quickly retrofitted, he added.
“We’re not happy about it”
As weapons continue to evolve in real time on Ukraine’s battlefields, the civilian companies behind the technology being armed to kill are now scrambling to find ways to prevent their products from entering the military supply chain.
“We do not condone its use. We’re trying our best to stop them,” a spokesman for Mugin Limited told CNN.
In an earlier statement published on its website on March 2, Mugin Limited said that they “condemn” the use of their products during warfare and that they stopped selling products to Russia or Ukraine at the start of the war .
CNN also reached out to half a dozen other companies whose electronic parts were visible in the downed UAV.
This includes MKS Servos, a Taiwanese manufacturer of electronic devices.
“Some UAV manufacturers may use MKS servos in their finished products for military use, we are not happy about this and it goes against our company’s mission and vision,” a company spokesman said in an email to CNN.
The MKS website disclaimer also states that their products are “banned” for any illegal or military use.
A sensor on the UAV’s retrofit board was made by Novatel, part of the Canada-based Hexagon Group, which supplies industries such as “agriculture, construction and automotive.”
“For all export-controlled products, we have extensive control processes in place to ensure they are shipped in accordance with applicable export laws,” a Hexagon spokesman told CNN via email.
“In April 2022, we also made the decision to freeze all business activities in Russia.”
Despite signs that the use of UAV technology is increasing in this conflict, Ukrainian fighter Maksim denies that this has become a drone war.
“It’s not a technology war,” he said. “The war is first and foremost a war of the people.”