Analysts of InformNapalm note that the Russian manufacturer of UAVs, "Albatross", takes part in the Kremlin's criminal war against Ukraine and continues to receive components from leading Western companies.
What is known about the participation of the Albatros UAV manufacter in the war against Ukraine
The publication's analysts, referring to the hackers of the Cyber Resistance group, note that the company easily circumvents Western sanctions and cooperates with leading Western companies such as NVIDIA, SONY, and SAITO.
The article emphasises that the Russian "Kaspersky Laboratory" continues cooperating with "Albatross" in developing anti-drone systems.
In their statements, Kaspersky representatives note that they stopped cooperating with "Albatross" on the Kaspersky Antidrone program back in 2022; however, these statements turned out to be lies.
According to documents available to analysts, "Albatross" tried to sell an anti-drone system to Kazakhstan between 2022 and 2023.
The supply contract was concluded in the summer of 2022. Still, due to additional restrictions imposed by the Russian authorities on the export of dual-purpose goods in connection with the war, Albatros took a long time to obtain permission from the export service.
A key element in the anti-drone system is the lidar. The Russians used Opal lidars from the Canadian company Neptec Technologies, which has been part of the French group Lumibird Limited since 2020.
At the same time, the Albatros-M5 drones are produced using a large number of Western electronic components.
The element base for electronic circuits is produced in Malaysia, Korea, Japan, and China.
Servo drives manufactured by Savox (Sweden-China). Scorpion engines (USA-China).
Radio channels (except Russian and their own) are produced by RFDesign (Australia).
Engine regulators (except for Russian and our own) are manufactured by Scorpion (USA-China) and Hobbyking (China).
Propeller blades are manufactured by the German company Aeronaut.
Other components are produced in Malaysia, China, Korea, Singapore, Australia, Sweden, and Switzerland.
As analysts note, this is how the Albatros-M5 drone production scheme looked as of the end of 2021.
What other Western companies does the sanctioned Albatros cooperate with?
As of the beginning of 2022, "Albatross" established a transition to raw materials produced completely in Russia, but the cost of production increased due to the higher purchase price of such raw materials.
At the end of 2022, "Albatross" is preparing to become a SEZ "Alabuga" resident.
The company signs a contract with Alabuga Development LLC to supply 100 Albatros-M5 drones during 2023 for a total of 1 billion 400 million rubles.
Also, Albatross's internal documentation clearly shows that its director, Florov, and chief engineer, Spiridonov, visited Iran in November 2022.
This was connected with the localisation of Shahed production in Russia.
From 2022 to 2023, "Albatross-M5" was tested in the combat zone. The application's geography was extensive and extended along the entire front.
Drones were mainly used for the purposes and interests of the FSB's border service, the Russian Federation's special operations forces, and the Russian Guard.
In the Albatros presentations, you can see a video of how the Albatros-M5 adjusts its artillery to defeat the Ukrainian M-777 howitzer.
Cameras manufactured by Sony help to carry out aerial photography and adjust the artillery of the Albatross.
These are usually Sony A6000 and Sony RX1R2 models for photography and Sony FCB-EH6500 and Sony FCB-EV7500 cameras for video recording.
"Albatross" uses Nvidia Jetson series microcomputers for neural network-based pattern recognition.
Communication and cooperation with Nvidia have been going on since at least 2016.
It did not stop after the invasion after direct US sanctions against Albatros LLC.
The Russians still use internal combustion engines from the Japanese manufacturer Saito.
Previously, these engines were found in Russian Orlan-10 UAVs.
How these engines got to the warehouse in "Alabuga" remains unknown.
In addition, the company Albatross uses the services of intermediary companies, such as Atlant LLC, which imports to Russia sub-sanctioned components of the leading Western companies Mean Well, Aimtec, Siemens, Chinfa, Maxim, XILINX, Atmel, Wago, Vicor, ST/TI, Intel, and Fujitsu.
