A Ukrainian Prankster Disrupted A Closed-door Meeting Of Russian Officials

Before that, they had let slip something about a sensitive issue.

Ukrainian prankster Yevgeny Volnov posted a recording of a meeting of Russian officials on drone certification, according to Dialog.UA.

A video conference between Russian officials and drone manufacturers unexpectedly ended after Ukrainian prankster Evgeniy Volnov joined the meeting and identified himself as an SBU officer. But before that, Russian officials had already admitted that Russia lagged significantly behind China in UAV certification.

Volnov posted a clip from the video conference on drone development on social media; participants included officials from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Rosaviatsia, and company executives.

In particular, the meeting was attended by the deputy head of Rosaviatsiya Andrey Potemkin, a representative of the Russian Aviation Register Evgeniya Gvozditsina, as well as the deputy director of the division of the company “Radar MMS,” which specializes in unmanned aerial vehicles, Evgeny Sivaev.

At the start of the meeting, Potemkin reported that the agency had received applications for the certification of 33 different types of unmanned aerial vehicles. According to him, seven applications were subsequently withdrawn, while eight more unmanned systems were successfully certified. Thus, 18 applications remained under review at that time.

“So right now we’re working on—how many do we have?—18 applications that we’re currently processing. China has 70. We have something to strive for,” Potemkin said.

After mentioning the Chinese figures, Potemkin urged the meeting participants to work more efficiently.

He stated that Russian agencies need to “organize their work more responsibly than their colleagues from the PRC”; in other words, according to the Rosaviatsiya representative, the Russian UAV certification system lags significantly behind the Chinese one in terms of the number of projects under review.

At one point, Volnov joined the conference and began asking the participants questions. The prankster introduced himself as an SBU officer, after which the participants began leaving the video conference.

In a comment on this video, the prankster explained that the conference participants were discussing Russian drone manufacturers’ dependence on supplies from China. According to him, they are unable to assemble a single drone without Chinese parts.

“This group got together to discuss how to wriggle out of the situation and fabricate fake reports for the Kremlin, but the meeting was suddenly interrupted,” the prankster said.

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