Vladimir Putin’s blundering chief TV propagandist has given away the top secret location of Russia’s most elite drone unit.
An unburied toilet sign in a report by Vladimir Solovyov led to the Rubicon HQ being geolocated.
The trail leads to Hall D and part of Hall C at the Patriot Exhibition Centre, near Moscow.
The site has been already targeted by Ukrainian attack drones, and could be again.
Solovyov is a highly-paid state TV propagandist for Putin and the war – and the careless blunder failing to mask the toilet signs in a report about Rubicon is a huge embarrassment.
‘Solovyov’s editors forgot to blur the sign above the entrance to the restroom, which has a distinctive design, and the light board located above it, which, as can be seen from publicly available videos from Patriot, shows the word “restroom” in Russian and English,’ said a report on Radio Liberty.
OSINT researchers identified the head of Rubicon, a centre for ‘centre for advanced unmanned technologies’ as well as its head Colonel Sergei Budnikov.
The unmasking of Rubicon is an embarrassment for Vladimir Putin’s defence minister Andrei Belousov, who was behind its development.
Vladimir Putin ’s blundering chief TV propagandist has given away the top secret location of Russia ’s most elite drone unit
An unburied toilet sign in a report by Vladimir Solovyov led to the Rubicon HQ being geolocated
On May 22, a Ukrainian Liutyi drone targeted the Patriot Expo, before forces struck a Pantsir air defence system at the site three days later
The centre is involved in development and testing of new drones, operator training, and the deployment of its own units on the front lines.
‘Russia owes much of the success of the Kursk [Region] operation to Rubicon, which emerged just over a year ago,’ said Radio Liberty.
‘The summer advances in Donetsk region are also thanks to Rubicon, which has learned to isolate areas of the battlefield, hunt enemy UAV operators, and cut off logistics just as well as the best Ukrainian unmanned units.
‘This is….the collective assessment of the Ukrainian military and Western experts.’
Researchers were able to identify the location from open source pictures from a spring exhibition showing the same distinctive toilet signs.
Footage from March shows that Ukraine attempted an attack at or near the location.
On May 22, a Ukrainian Liutyi drone targeted the Patriot Expo on Moscow’s western suburbs, a site which has hosted major military exhibitions. Three days later, forces struck a Pantsir air defence system at the location.
According to investigators, Solovyov’s broadcast was the reason the Rubicon base was exposed to such attacks.
Rubicon is ‘Russia’s best technological unit,’ said Maria Berlinska, head of the Ukrainian Aerial Reconnaissance Support Centre, a nongovernment group that assists the military.
The site has been already targeted by Ukrainian attack drones, and could be again
The centre is involved in development and testing of new drones, operator training, and the deployment of its own units on the front lines
President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s top war propaganda man Vladimir Solovyov
Russian Minister of Defence Andrey Belousov pictured visiting secret Rubicon drone HQ
‘Rubicon has brilliant management, works systematically, selects the best personnel, provides training, and supplies all necessary resources. They pour money into it,’ she wrote in a Facebook post from August 21.
She suggested that the Ukrainian military must try to adopt Rubicon’s best practices while working towards dismantling its specialist crew as a matter of urgency.
‘Russia had several strong strike [drone] units in Kursk, but Rubicon was the main one there. Because of this, Ukraine was unable to supply its troops normally,’ Rob Lee, a former U.S. Marine officer who is now a military analyst with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told Radio Liberty.
‘They were a key reason why Russia was able to take back essentially all of Kursk Oblast in February and March,’ he added.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .