Russia creates network of educational facilities for training drone operators – investigation

Analysts of the Molfar OSINT agency have detected numerous educational facilities in Russia where drone pilots, technicians and engineers are being trained.

Source: investigation by Molfar

These educational facilities cooperate with Russian state structure, mainly with the Internal Ministry, Federal Security Service and Ministry of Emergency Situations, and may have representative offices outside Russia.

Thus, Nebesnaya Mekhanika (Sky Mechanics) is a DJI drone distributor in Russia and has its own training centre for UAV pilots training on DJI drones. Moreover, the company has an office in Uzbekistan.

Another company, Avanti Group, in May 2023 established Avanti State Corporation for "scientific research and developments in the nature and technical sciences sector."

"These NACE legal entities are most frequently used for cooperation with Russian military organisations. The training is held at such addresses: Russia, Moscow, Krasnopresnenskaya Bay 12, office 924B; and the city of Innopolis, Universitetskaya St. 7, 602," the investigation reads.

The Vozdukh (Air) Ltd obtained a licence for educational activity in May 2022. It is stated on the website that a specialised educational department of the training centre was created on 6 May 2022.

NACE has included additional types of economic activities in their documents, such as:

• professional training;
• additional education for children and adults;
• operation of schools for air and water vessels.

Another educational centre, Pustelga, states on its Telegram-channel that it has two centres in the combat zone in Ukraine. On 4 May 2023, a photo of 18 persons was posted with a caption about the first graduation in April. It was stated in one of the posts that followed that the educational centre had been working since March.

"According to the mk.ru resource, the National Guard of Russian jointly with the Pustelga educational centre launched courses for FPV-drones operators who will most likely then go to the war in Ukraine," the investigators state.   

Molfar adds that it has also found educational centres which could be cooperating with the Wagner PMC and even import DJI drones for them. Among them are drone pilots school SHUBBA-Octagon and Ltd Pozitron.

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