Wahid Nawabi, CEO of AeroVironment, the American company that makes Swithcblade drones. Born in Afghanistan, he had to flee after the Soviet invasion and now feels a moral obligation to spare the Ukrainians a similar fate
The first examples of Switchblade, the drone kamikaze that the United States was supplying to defend Kyiv, have already been sighted on the battlefield in Ukraine: in early April, to train the resistance, the Pentagon revealed the presence of some Ukrainian military forces United States, arrived at a base in the South months before the invasion for a scheduled exercise. Over two days, they taught them how to maneuver the Switchblade 600 – which has a range of 40 kilometers, a range of 40 minutes and is remotely controlled to hit moving vehicles that explode on impact – and the Switchblade 300, which is designed for smaller targets used will weigh less than three pounds and can be carried in a backpack.
These drones – whose name means jackknife – are made by AeroVironment, which is in talks with the government in Kyiv to sell them more directly, in addition to the 100 drones being sent by the United States. They have been very effective tools so far, Wahid Nawabi, CEO of AeroVironment, who personally decided to donate another 100 Quantix reconnaissance drones to Ukrainians, told Bloomberg in recent days that are capable of targeting the resistance with accurate and fast Remote images to supply areas and inaccessible to the battlefield. Again, these are lightweight drones that weigh 2.3 kilos, can scan an area of 1.6 square kilometers and have a range of 45 minutes per flight.
Nawabi approved the donation because he says he feels a personal connection to Ukrainian refugees, more than 5 million so far according to the UNHCR count. Born in northern Afghanistan and raised in Kabul, he was forced to flee his country in 1982 after the Soviet invasion that began three years earlier: just 14 years old when he embarked on a trip to Afghanistan along with his three younger sisters, lasting 48 days to reach parents in India. Today he is 54 years old, an American citizen and as the CEO of a large Pentagon company that makes drones, he feels a moral obligation to help Ukrainians to defend themselves. I had the same heartbreaking experience, she told the National Review. We must help them regain their freedom.
Nawabi does not reveal how many drones have already been delivered to the Ukrainians, but explains that these tools can potentially be game changers, i.e. they can mark a turning point in the war like the Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that the CIA provided the Afghans with, in order to to defeat the Soviets. They have near-ideal functionality, explains Nawabi, CEO of the Virginia-based company since 2016. As the Taliban say, you can also run, at the limit you die exhausted. Running away once the switchblade drone has located the target is useless.
Nawabi knows what he’s talking about. Growing up in a peaceful Afghanistan – Kabul was a big hippie city in the 1970s – and temperate, the country became too dangerous with the internal revolution and the Soviet invasion for his parents, who dressed western and had studied in American schools. They had to flee, but young Wahid and his three sisters could not fly to New Delhi with their parents: they would have to travel by land, his father told him one winter night in 1982, and come back. in India. I felt like the world had collapsed on me, remember today.
So 14-year-old Nawabi and the three sisters crossed Afghanistan from Kabul to Kandahar, risking arrest by the Soviets, then arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, and finally India: they traveled for 48 days on foot, by bus , by train, hitchhiking and on the back of mules. I had no instructions, he tells the conservative American magazine, just some cash and a few cards: we hadn’t even seen passports or passports. In the morning, when they arrived in New Delhi, he heard someone call his name: it was his cousin, who went to the bus station with his father every day to look for them on the line that went from Amritsar, an Indian one border town, came. I didn’t even wait for the stop, remember. I jumped right out the window.
Today – and a bit why the conservative American magazine is reconstructing this extraordinary story – Nawabi believes that the Russians bear responsibility for what has happened to Afghanistan over the past 40 years: If it weren’t for the invasion, he believes his country would be more open and been more moderate. A lot of people blame America, and ok: we have responsibilities and left suddenly, he says. It all started with the Russians: if they hadn’t invaded Afghanistan, history would have taken a different course.
Now he hopes AeroVironment’s drones can spare Ukrainians a similar fate. I believe in this thing, I believe that we must respond to this aggression, concludes Wahid Nawabi. I feel ethically and morally responsible: as an American, as the CEO of this company, and ultimately as a human being.
May 1, 2022 (change May 1, 2022 | 13:58)
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