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Searcher II with SAR
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There has been ongoing speculation about Syria buying MiG-31s and MiG-29s with Iranian financing. Some reports even place the Islamic Republic of Iran as the ultimate recipient. Recent reports say that Russia has put the deal on the backburner, though Syria denies this. Other reports discuss claimed delays in delivery of advanced S-300 long-range anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. What’s even more interesting are the parallel reports that Israel may be selling UAVs to Russia, and speculation that these sets of events may be related.

UAVs have a much smaller field of view than manned aircraft, and at the moment they also have much higher accident rates. In exchange, they offer extremely long endurance, the potential for centralized monitoring, and much lower costs per-hour. This combination is ideal for monitoring critical infrastructure. Such as, for example, long oil and gas pipelines that are the chokepoint of a Russian economy relying on energy exports.

The UAV buy speculation has been confirmed, but in the process Russian officials irked the Israelis. Not so much that reports haven’t surfaced about Russia tripling its order, mind you…

Searcher II system
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Russia’s surveillance needs are genuine, and the recent war in Georgia demonstrated the value of UAVs – to the Georgian side. Most of those UAVs were Israeli-made.

Russia’s UAV-related problems are two-fold.

The first problem is that they are behind in UAV technology. Russia’s defense sector is still weak as a result of the devastating budget cutbacks in the 1990s, when Russia’s economy and defense spending both collapsed. Small to medium size UAVs are not a technically difficult aerospace project. The problem is that finding production resources and time can be difficult in a centralized system that has yet to recover and modernize, and needs its available engineers to support existing strategic and/or export-oriented projects. Russia lack of progress in this field suggests that issues remain.

So, too, do reports of Russian UAV performance in Georgia. Defense Update:

“An example of Russian UAVs technology is the Tipchak system developed by the Lutch Design Bureau. According to Mr Popovkin, the drone was operational during the recent fighting with Georgia, but had demonstrated many problems, among them a distinct acoustic signature audible from long distance, which, coupled with the low ceiling, yielded high vulnerability to ground fire. The developers are currently working on a new-generation Tipchak, expected to be delivered in about three years…. The new Russian UAV weighs 132 pounds, has a payload of 32 pounds and can stay in the air for two hours per sortie. The Tipchak can operate as high as 10,000 feet. The drone carries a day/night camera payload. It has an operational range of 40 km and mission endurance of about two hours.”

The second problem is less tractable, as it has been a long-standing Russian weakness. UAVs require miniaturization and lightweight components for their payloads, or their performance suffers badly. This has always been a problem for Russian equipment, which tends to be overbuilt rather than over-engineered. Russia has also traditionally had issues producing reliable electronics, which are required for the UAVs’ back-end.

Reports have been floated for a couple of months now that Israel and Russia were discussing a deal for UAVs, and a May 24/09 Jerusalem Post article raised them again with a $50-53 million UAV deal that was reportedly signed in April 2009.

I-View, landing
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The UAV systems in question reportedly include 3 IAI products. The largest is the Searcher-II tactical UAV. Searchers have an endurance of 12-15 hours. They have received excellent reviews from Russia’s traditional defense ally India, for instance, and were recently bought by Spain for service in Afghanistan. The order also reportedly includes smaller I-View MK150 short-range UAVs that use parachutes to land, and hand-launched Bird-Eye 400 mini-UAVs. Officials reportedly told the Jerusalem Post that deliveries would begin by the end of 2009.

Ultimately, according to RIA-Novosti, Russia aims to develop a fleet of at least 100 UAVs with flight ranges of up to 240 miles, and airborne endurance of 12 hours or more. That’s beyond the specifications of these Israeli UAVs, although the Searcher-II comes close.

In May 2009, Jerusalem Post also reported that a follow-on deal “is likely to include the sale of IAI’s long-range Heron.” IAI’s Heron comes in 3 variants, all of which are Medium Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) platforms in the same class as the USA’s MQ-1 Predator. They would exceed Russia’s desired specifications several-fold, but they would also represent a transfer of more advanced UAV technology. Subsequent comments by a Russian official underlined the risks inherent in that approach – but sometimes strategy makes strange bedfellows, and the risk/reward calculus isn’t always straightforward.

Updates and Events

Birds Eye 400 Launch
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Dec 8/09: Amidst recent comments by Russian Air Force (VVS) Commander-in-Chief (CINC) Colonel-General Aleksandr Zelin expressing his deep dissatisfaction with Russian-designed UAV tradeoffs, reports surface that Russia is looking to triple its Israeli UAV order. Col. Gen. Zelin expressed his unhappiness with Russian UAVs, citing issues with:

”...either with the speed, or flight altitude or the resolution capacity of their equipment. It is a sheer crime to make operational unmanned aircraft without the required tactical and technical characteristics…. “I am, therefore, refusing to sign any acceptance papers.”

Not so long ago, that really would have been a crime in Russia. These days, it’s just causing the VVS to look elsewhere for a stopgap, just as the US Marines and Army did with Israeli designs like the RQ-1 Pioneer, R/MQ-5 Hunter, etc. during the 1990s. The big question is whether more capable UAVs like the Hermes 450 or Heron would be supplied this time, along with their more advanced sensors. Some analysts think that a second deal for about $100 million that results in advanced Israeli technology being stolen may be deemed an acceptable strategic price to pay – IF it actually buys Israel some time by stalling sales of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Then, too, there’s also Russia’s long-standing defense industrial issues with quality control and miniaturization, especially of sensors, which may prevent it from successfully fielding the things it steals. Turkey’s similar problems, which have hobbled their own attempts to field Israeli Heron UAVs, are instructive in this regard. Iran PressTV | Jamestown Foundation | SatNews Daily | StrategyPage | UPI.

June 22/09: Vyacheslav Dzilkarn, the deputy head of the Russian governmental Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, confirms to RIA Novosti that Russia is buying 12 Israeli UAVs for $53 million.

He then proceeds to alarm and annoy the Israelis when he says that the main goal of the purchase is to study Israeli technology in order to build drones in Russia. A Jerusalem Post report added a quote from an Israeli official, who appeared to close the door on sales of more advanced UAVs. He added that:

“We have a responsibility to safeguard our ingenious technology…. We were aware of this possibility, even though it was not said explicitly until now.”

See: Jerusalem Post | Defense News | RIA Novosti (interestingly, a dead link now).

June 16/09: The Jerusalem Post continues to follow Israeli diplomacy, including efforts to halt the sale of S-300 missiles to Syria and Iran.

Additional Readings

• DID – Israeli Manufacturers’ $150M Turkish UAV Contract Endangered. Israel had no issue with selling Turkey Heron UAVs, which are in a similar class to the American Predator. But the Turks insisted on their own clunky sensors, and the resulting weight issues hurt the Herons’ performance to the point that it may destroy the deal. Russia’s problems in this area would be similar, but worse. Unless they can just outsource sensors to France’s Thales, something that Britain’s Watchkeeper program has already done for the slightly smaller Hermes 450 UAV.

• Jerusalem Post (May 24/09) – Israel to speed up Russia’s UAV order

• Motley Fool (May 8/09) – “Hey! Who’s Flying This Thing?” 2009 Edition. Speculates – correctly, as it turns out – that Russia’s buy is simply a prelude to theft.

• Defense Update (April 2009) – UAV Sale Marks a New Milestone in Russian-Israeli Defense Relations. It hails the long eforts to improve cooperation, but adds: ”...the potential economical benefit for Israel is questionable, in retrospect of sensitive technological leakage to its enemies and, the risk of training the Russian engineers in advanced technologies. These are known to be masters of re[verse] engineering, during the days of the Cold War with the west.”

• DID – Russia’s Military Spending Jumping – But Can Its Industry?

• DID (Oct 31/07) – US-Israeli Covenant Forces Review of Civilian Satellite Deal With China. It does not appear to have been an issue for the reported Russian UAV deal.