“Gentlemen, go, look around. You, bald, first of all.” A Ukrainian prankster attended a meeting at the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade and learned that 90% of the electricians in drones are foreign

Pranker Evgeniy Volnov from Ukraine attended a closed meeting at the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, which was held via videoconference. Volnov published a video about this on April 17; attention was drawn to the video by Astra, which identified some of the participants in the meeting.

The edited recording, which lasts just over a minute, shows that the production of drones is being discussed at the meeting (this follows from the presentation that the participants in the video call see).

One of the meeting participants says in voiceover that her company was faced with a “problem regarding raw materials” needed for batteries. She is interested in what percentage of foreign-made raw materials should be in products.

According to her, in Russia you cannot buy raw materials that are available in other countries. “If we even take some copper wires, which - as everyone knows, I think my colleagues won’t let me lie - are manufactured exclusively in China. That is, if we just take electrical equipment, then 90% is always foreign raw materials. It’s simply not produced in Russia,” says a participant in the recording.

Attention. There is a swear word in the next paragraph. It says what the prankster said to the meeting participants.

In the second part of the video, prankster Evgeniy Volnov asks the question: “Colleagues, can you hear me?” After which he rudely insults the mothers of the meeting participants. When one of the officials with a bald head asks to disconnect Volnov from the video call, the prankster adds: “Your fuckers have all been filmed, so, gentlemen, go and look around. Yes, yes, you, bald, first of all.”

According to Volnov and the Astra publication, the meeting was attended by the head of the department of unmanned systems and robotics of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, Alexey Serdyuk (it was him who the prankster called bald). In addition, the meeting was attended by:

• Alexander Plotnikov, an employee of the same department of the Ministry of Industry and Trade for drones,
• Daniil Abulov, who provides support to drone manufacturers in interaction with the Ministry of Defense and public organizations,
• employee of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Alexander Lysenko,
• Andrey Titov, associated with enterprises of the military-industrial complex,
• Andrey Sukharev, also associated with the military-industrial complex,
• Aisen Nesterov, Director of Asset Protection, ANO Center for Unmanned Systems and Technologies.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation did not comment on the leak.

• Russia actively uses foreign components in the production of its weapons. Thus, according to the British Royal United Defense Studies Institute (RUSI), the Orlan-10 multi-purpose drone used an engine from Japan, a control system based on a microcontroller from Switzerland, and a gimbal for the camera with equipment from the United States. The manufacturer of these drones purchases foreign components through intermediary companies in the USA, China and Russia, participants in the 2022 investigation found out .
• In the production of Shahed attack drones in Tatarstan, 126 components are used that are produced in other countries, primarily in the USA, and only four are produced in Russia, The Washington Postfound out in 2023.