Ukrainians officials put explosives in drone pilot goggles that Russians were meant to use, it was revealed today.
The Financial Times reports that Kyiv’s defence intelligence unit, known as the GUR, emulated the exploding pagers operation by Israel’s Mossad that killed or maimed thousands of Hizbollah militants and civilians in Lebanon in September.
“We can confirm that this is a successful operation [and] it is still ongoing,” one person involved in the GUR operation told the FT.
“Technologically, it is more complicated than with pagers, but, unfortunately, Russians do not use pagers much,” they added.
NPP, a Russian company that produces and supplies equipment for the Russian military, told state news agency Tass in early February that a batch of first-person-view drone goggles had been sabotaged and implanted with explosives that detonated when the devices were switched on.
“A batch of Skyzone Cobra X V4 FPV goggles was handed over by a man named Roman,” Igor Potapov of NPP was cited as saying, adding that the goggles had been donated as humanitarian aid.
“When the goggles were turned on, detonation occurred, detonation was carried out. When we opened the batch, we found packed plastic in all these products,” Potapov was cited as saying, adding that troops should remain vigilant.
