MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. Casualties among the operators of the fiber-optic drone Knyaz Vandal of Novgorod (KVN) are minimal, CEO of the Ushkuynik Research and Production Center (Veliky Novgorod) Alexey Chadayev told TASS in an interview.
"There’s a very important point here—something our engineers are specially working on. In many ways, the technology’s specifics are on our side. <…> Therefore, yes, the number of casualties among operators of KVN drones is indeed minimal. But we’re advancing in this direction. Our goal is to make the operators’ work area as safe as possible, to hide them as deeply as possible, and to move them away from the kill zone. We’re constantly working on this, because preserving the drone operators’ lives is an absolute priority for us," Chadayev said.
The head of Ushkuynik named the factors that contribute to this phenomenon. "To confidently operate a radio-controlled drone, you need a remote antenna, a ground control station that's difficult to conceal and detectable by the enemy. Among other things, there's radio coverage, which provides the possibility to scan the airwaves. In the case of KVN, the operator could be located completely underground so that there are no external signs that the firing site is located there. Also, the drone can’t be located by radio. This means the enemy only learns of an attack a few seconds before it happens," he said.
According to Chadayev, when fiber-optic drones were rarely used, it was theoretically possible to track the crew’s location by a fiber-optic cable. "We, on both sides, tried to track the launch moment by the remaining thread. But since everything on the battlefield is now entangled in fiber optic cable, this method is currently ineffective," the expert emphasized.