Russia captures British ‘kamikaze’ drone actually used for target practice

Russia bragged about capturing a British-made ‘kamikaze’ drone usually used as an aerial target (Picture: Telegram)

Russia’s proxies in occupied Ukraine claim to have intercepted a British-made’kamikaze’ drone – but it’s mainly used for target practice.

Video footage shared on the official Telegram channel of Denis Pushilin, head of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, shows a grey Banshee Jet-80+ drone grounded with its nose lying in the grass.

The footage was posted at 5am on Monday, February 19.

Pushilin claimed the drone’s warhead, consisting of seven kilograms of explosives, was neutralised and the charge destroyed by explosives experts after a controlled landing.

The drone was allegedly aimed at a civil infrastructure facility in Mariupol, a coastal city in Donetsk that was captured by Russian forces in May 2022.

It was apparently intercepted in a joint mission by Russia’s FSB security service, military units and the National Guard. There is no evidence of damage from air defence systems.

The Banshee Jet-80+ drone is produced by British manufacturer QinetiQ. Russia claims to have intercepted one in occupied Ukraine (Picture: Telegram)

No information on the specific target, how they intercepted the drone or deciphered its ‘flight mission’ was provided.

Russian authorities also did not show any evidence of the explosives alleged to have been in its warhead.

Pushilin, the Putin-appointed leader of the annexed territory since 2018, branded the drone’s use, and British involvement, as ‘terrorism’.

He said: ‘We see how Western terrorists, together with their Ukrainian accomplices, wanted to once again organise a monstrous terrorist attack and blame Russia for everything.

‘Against the backdrop of a major defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces in Avdiivka, the Kiev regim is making any attempts to destabilise the situation in the Republic.

‘But thanks to the coordinated work of our special services, we were able to prevent a large-scale attack with civilian casualties.’

Vladimir Putin meeting with Denis Pushilin, Moscow-installed acting leader of the Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk region (Picture: via REUTERS)

Equipped with twin 40kg gas turbine engines, the British-made Banshee Jet-80+ can stay in the air for 45 minutes and travel at speeds up to nearly 450mph, according to manufacturer QinetiQ.

The Banshee Jet-80+ is not known as a kamikaze drone, used for one-off destructive missions, as Russian authorities claimed.

The model is part of the Banshee family of drones primarily used to trial weapons systems by simulating the threat of fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, and cruise missiles, Naval Technology reports.

It is unclear whether the drone was repurposed as a kamikaze drone by Ukrainian forces.

The Russian claims came less than a week after the UK government announced it would be joining Latvia in scaling up the provision of drones allowing Ukrainian operators to target enemy targets in the battlefield.

Drones have become a major factor during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Putin supporters were enraged when footage emerged showing an entire column of 11 Russian tanks and armoured vehicles destroyed in one Ukrainian onslaught in February.

Ukraine’s drone units destroyed or damaged 73 Russian tanks and 234 other pieces of military equipment, in a single week in January, according to Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation.

They also claimed to have killed or injured 369 military personnel.

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Most of this drone capacity is down to domestic production in Ukraine rather than foreign imports.

Ukraine aims to produce one million drones this year, Business Insider reported.

It already had 200 mostly private companies producing drones by the start of 2024, and domestic output was one hundred times higher last year than in the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, according to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

He said: ‘Over the past year and a half, we have completely changed the rules of the game.’

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