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Ukraine’s defence intelligence unit rigged with explosives a batch of drone pilot goggles destined for use by Russians on battlefields in Ukraine, said officials with direct knowledge of the operation.
The officials told the Financial Times that the defence intelligence directorate of Ukraine, known as the GUR, took inspiration from the controversial exploding pagers operation by Israel’s Mossad that killed or maimed thousands of Hizbollah militants and civilians in Lebanon in September.
“We can confirm that this is a successful operation [and] it is still ongoing,” said the person involved in the GUR operation.
“Technologically, it is more complicated than with pagers, but, unfortunately, Russians do not use pagers much,” they added.
The operation involved GUR operatives acquiring a large batch of first-person-view drone goggles, modifying them with a remote detonation mechanism, and then distributing them to Russian drone units through volunteers posing as donors, said the people involved.
It was unclear whether Russian soldiers on the battlefield were injured by the devices.
A representative of NPP, a Russian company that produces and supplies equipment for the Russian military, told state news agency Tass in early February that a batch of first-person view drone goggles had been sabotaged and implanted with explosives that detonated when the devices were switched on.
“A batch of Skyzone Cobra X V4 FPV goggles was handed over by a man named Roman,” Igor Potapov of NPP was cited as saying, adding that the goggles had been donated as humanitarian aid.
Russian soldiers receive large amounts of equipment, including protective gear, night goggles and drones, through donations and crowdsourced purchases delivered by volunteers.
“When the goggles were turned on, detonation occurred, detonation was carried out. When we opened the batch, we found packed plastic in all these products,” Potapov was cited as saying, adding that troops should remain vigilant.
Readovka, a pro-Kremlin Russian news outlet with nearly 3mn followers on Telegram, also reported on February 7 that a batch of FPV drone goggles had been booby-trapped.
Improvised explosive devices with 10 to 15 grammes of plastic explosives, with detonators, were found in the body of the goggles, Readovka said, citing military bloggers and frontline volunteers.
The outlet described a “certain Roman” as the perpetrator and said the batch was dispatched via a private Russian parcel delivery company.
GUR is headed by Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, a survivor of multiple assassination attempts who oversees operations from a fortified riverside compound colloquially known as “the island”. Budanov has orchestrated many of Ukraine’s covert operations against Russia.
The exploding goggles represent the latest development in the increasingly sophisticated shadow war between Kyiv and Moscow’s bold and resourceful intelligence agencies.
Both countries’ intelligence agencies have engaged in the widening battle that extends far beyond the front lines to target military personnel, infrastructure and supply chains through secret operations.
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