Drones are knocking down the regime – Newspaper Kommersant No. 206 (7407) of 11/08/2022

The market for commercial drones in Russia is under threat. The authorities have already banned flights in three regions, citing a presidential decree on the introduction of a standby mode, the Moscow region may soon join them, and market participants fear further “rolling bans” throughout the country. Manufacturers and operators of drones estimate losses at 10 billion rubles. per year and consider the measure to be ineffective, since it hits conscientious market participants. As an alternative, they offer digital airspace surveillance and flight bans over critical infrastructure.

The spread of the ban on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in all Russian regions threatens the industry with losses in the amount of 10 billion rubles. during the year, calculated the Aeronext profile association. Since October 24, bans on the use of UAVs have been successively introduced in the Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod and Tula regions. The governors were guided by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 757 of October 19, according to which various degrees of readiness regime were introduced in the Russian regions. In the near future, a ban on UAV flights, according to Aeronext, may enter the Moscow region, and there is a threat of a “fanning spread” of this measure across all regions.

Among the first victims was the Finko company, which lost contracts for 1.2 million rubles. due to a ban in the Nizhny Novgorod region, one of which includes an agreement to monitor the pipelines of Gazprom Transgaz Nizhny Novgorod. The Kommersant company clarified that if the ban is extended to other regions, revenue losses could amount to 1 billion rubles. in year. In total, there are at least 40 companies in the Russian Federation that provide services using drones. “The ban will hit the oil and gas, energy, construction, mining and other industries,” Gleb Babintsev, head of Aeronext, told Kommersant. The association intends to ask the presidential administration and regional authorities to lift the ban on flights.

As Kommersant was told at the Geoscan Group of Companies, a major operator and manufacturer of UAVs, the losses could be larger: sales of services for the use of UAVs could be reduced by more than 10 billion rubles. per year, and the devices themselves – by 1-2 billion rubles.

Losses to consumers, as the company believes, will be much higher, since the use of the UA “saves substantial funds and improves the quality of data for management decisions.” “If drones are canceled, many sectors of the economy will suffer, such as agriculture, construction, mining, the oil and gas sector and many others,” they added. Geoscan believes that in the end, “the army will also suffer”: drone operators will have to be trained from scratch, the recruit will have no experience.

The use of UAVs is already strictly regulated: permission must be obtained for any flight. Aeronext believes that as a result, the flight ban will only hit bona fide companies. “Illegals will fly as before, only with more caution. As for the criminals, this will not stop them,” they say. A much greater effect, according to Geoscan, can be given by the mass introduction of Aeroscope-type systems in cities, which allow automatic detection of drones of standard types and the location of their operators.

According to the Nebosvod digital platform for organizing unmanned air traffic (the developer is Aeroscript), up to 37% of the total number of unmanned flights in the Russian Federation take place in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Saratov regions, more than half of them are commercial. According to Aeroscript, about 1.5 thousand commercial UAV flights are carried out in the Russian Federation per month, in general, 93.5 thousand flights have been agreed in 2021. Aeroscript CEO Alexei Khripunov believes that instead of complete bans, it is more expedient to strengthen preventive control using digital solutions, in particular, Nebosvod can provide access to airspace only to pilots who have passed electronic identification. The only explanation for the imposed bans is “reinsurance of officials,” Amir Valiev, the general director of Ptero, is sure that air traffic controllers can already in a matter of minutes transmit to the police data on the issued permits and contacts of the UAV flight director.

Methods for neutralizing drones also need to be improved, market participants believe. Now law enforcement officers are working in the “saw-shot down” paradigm, and in the event of a navigation failure or due to the remote pilot’s ignorance of the restrictions, any UAV runs the risk of being shot down, says Gleb Babintsev. In his opinion, first you need to try to identify the vessel, then establish contact with the remote pilot and send a command to land or change course. The vessel should be shot down only if it was not possible to identify the vessel or the command to land was not carried out. In addition, the initiative of the Ministry of Energy, which is studying the possibility of restricting flights for UAVs over critical fuel and energy facilities, is called a positive example in the field of protecting critical infrastructure in the association.

But there are other opinions as well. The editor-in-chief of the Unmanned Aviation magazine, Denis Fedutinov, emphasizes that the use of drones in the interests of extremist or terrorist structures is “not a hypothetical possibility.” In his opinion, prohibitive measures are “not just appropriate, but necessary” in territories bordering the war zone, large cities and strategically important objects.

Aigul Abdullina