Belarusians train to shoot drones with blanks but have not shown if they succeed

Thursday, 1 June 2023, 16:10

Belaruski Hajun, an independent Belarusian military monitoring media outlet, has reported that the Belarusian military is training to shoot down drones with blank ammunition and shared a video from the Belarusian Ministry of Defence.

Source: Belaruski Hajun

Details: For instance, the Ministry of Defence of Belarus has shared a video showing the Armed Forces of Belarus and units of military command and maintenance "practising the downing and destruction of UAVs on the basis of the 43rd Missile and Ammunition Arsenal".

A 23-mm ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun and a Kalashnikov rifle were used to down the drone.

Belaruski Hajun has reported that in the video, a Belarusian soldier is seen firing at the UAV with a Kalashnikov assault rifle equipped with a blank-firing adapter.

According to the rules of fire of an AK-74 assault rifle, it is strictly forbidden to fire live ammunition with a blank-firing adapter attached onto the barrel.

Belaruski Hajun believes that the soldier could not have had live ammunition in his magazine.

The Ministry of Defence of Belarus did not specify how a UAV could be "suppressed and destroyed" by firing blank cartridges from an assault rifle.

Quote: "Taking into account the behaviour of the two cameramen (the first one filmed the attached video, and the second one can be seen in the background), we can state that they were not training to destroy UAVs, but filming another staged video.

Obviously, the Ministry of Defence of Belarus does not plan to learn how to fight drones in real life (and not on camera), and will adopt the ‘successful’ experience of the border guards of Belarus."

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