Amid escalating nuclear threats, Russia has developed a “doomsday drone” in preparation for potential nuclear attack scenarios, a top executive of a Russian drone manufacturer said on Friday.
Dmitry Kuzyakin, the chief executive officer of Center of Integrated Unmanned Solutions (CUS), told Tass, a Russian state-run outlet, that the first person view (FPV) doomsday drone, developed by Russian specialists, is capable of monitoring background radiation and ensuring the security of nearby personnel in the event of a nuclear attack and subsequent contamination.
The small, easily maneuverable drone boasts 20 minutes of active flight time, with a range varying from three-tenths of a mile to just over a mile, depending on the level of nuclear contamination. It can reportedly be compactly stowed with ground-based equipment.
“I am confident that common sense will prevail and the world will refrain from using nuclear weapons and our doomsday drone will never be needed. And yet we believe that it would [be] a crime not to prepare for even the worst scenarios,” Kuzyakin told Tass.
The development comes after months of escalating global tensions and Russia’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons against the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO) countries during the nearly two-and-a-half-year-long Russia-Ukraine war following Moscow’s invasion in February 2022.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian government for comment via email on Saturday.
In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned his country’s foreign ministry leadership, “we have come unacceptably close to the point of no return,” referring to Moscow’s threat to deploy nuclear weapons.
Putin has approved tactical nuclear weapons drills, and a few days ago, Russia advanced to the third stage, aimed at “preparing units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for the combat use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
At the beginning of 2024, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit led by nuclear risk leaders, “once again set the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight because humanity continues to face an unprecedented level of danger.”
Russia has an estimated 5,580 nuclear warheads, according to a 2024 report by the Federation of American Scientists, which says the U.S. has 5,044. Seven other countries possess nuclear weapons, including North Korea, who signed a strategic military assistance agreement with Russia in June. However, these countries reportedly have stockpiles that are nowhere near the size of those held by the U.S. and Russia.
John Isaacs, senior fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a nonpartisan nonprofit aiming to reduce nuclear threats, explained the gravity and utter obliteration of nuclear warfare in a phone interview with Newsweek in June.
Nuclear warfare would mean “ending most life on earth—extensive damage in your own country as well as other countries,” Isaac explained.
“If Putin started using nuclear weapons, he would die, so would a lot of people in Russia, a lot of people in the United States or NATO would die—in other words, it’s suicidal for any country,” he said.
