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Russia’s Airborne Troops hope to get attack drones in 2015

Colonel-General Vladimir Shamanov indicated that development of new types of wheeled armored vehicles specially for the “winged infantry” was in progress

MOSCOW, July 31, 22:22 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Airborne Troops hope to get first attack drones last year, Colonel-General Vladimir Shamanov told reporters Thursday.

He indicated that development of new types of wheeled armored vehicles specially for the “winged infantry” was in progress.

“Active accumulation of a stock of drones at the Airborne Troops is underway and we’d like to get attack drones next year along with the ones for aerial reconnaissance,” Gen Shamanov said speaking live on Rossiya news channel. “There are some fair blueprints and we tried them out in the course of the May methodological assembly at the 76th Pskov Airborne Division.

He added that the Airborne Troops were cooperating closely with a whole range of industries of the Russian defense industry. As an instance of this, he cited cooperation with the producer of heavy-duty trucks, OAO KamAZ.

“I hope we’ll create new samples of wheeled armored vehicles,” Gen Shamanov said.

He also said the Airborne Troops would get airborne fighting vehicles BMD-4M.

“We hope to get two battalion-size sets of 32 vehicles in the BMD-4M series and more than twenty Rakushka armored personnel carriers,” Gen Shamanov said. “This will make it possible to shape up a new profile of armored technologies in the Airborne Troops.”

He recalled that the field testing of two Rakushkas began last December, while the Tula and Ryazan airborne regiments received eight BMD-4M’s each for experimental operation at the beginning of this summer.