MOSCOW. April 17 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Defense Ministry is planning to buy a small batch of Israeli unmanned aerial drones in the first half of this year, Deputy head of the State Duma Defense Committee Mikhail Babich told the press on Friday.
"A small batch of drones will be bought from Israel. We intend to study the specifics of their production technology and the special features in their control systems. However, the main thing to which we must pay attention is the combat use of the unmanned aerial vehicles," he said.
Asked about the timing of the imports, Babich said that they will take place in the first half of the year.
So far Russia's experience of using drones has not been very successful, he said. "Therefore on the basis of existing advanced models we must train personnel, introduce controls, introduce a system of collecting, processing and analyzing intelligence information and also forwarding it to commanders for operative decision-making," he said.
One of the purposes of buying Israeli drones was to encourage domestic manufacturers to improve the quality of their output, Babich said.