Chinese drone maker DJI asserts its products’ civilian use after Russian official calls them ‘symbol of modern warfare’
- Russia’s embassy in China has deleted a post in Weibo that praised DJI’s drones for bringing ‘a real revolution’ to traditional artillery weapons
- That post quoted Russian Army General Yuri Baluyevsky, who described the ‘pinpoint accuracy and efficiency’ of DJI’s Mavic quadcopter drones
“All DJI products are designed for civilian purposes and cannot meet the requirements of military specifications,” DJI said in a statement posted on microblogging service Weibo on Saturday. “We do not support applications for military purposes.”
The response was triggered by the Russian embassy’s post on Weibo on Friday that cited a report from state media Sputnik about a new book by Army General Yuri Baluyevsky, the former Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In his book, Baluyevsky said Chinese commercial drones have brought “a real revolution” to traditional artillery weapons.
That post has been deleted by the Russian embassy, which did not reply to a request for comment on Monday.
Before it was removed, the post was swamped with condemnations from Chinese internet users, many of whom indicated that there was a malicious intent behind its publication.
“What do you want by saying this? Western countries to block DJI? Or more sanctions on China?,” one of the most liked comments on Weibo said.
Ukraine calls on Chinese drone maker to stop use by Russia
That decision was made after an internal assessment of “compliance requirements in various jurisdictions”, DJI said in a statement in April to explain the suspension of operations in the two countries.
Once dominant in the global civilian drone market with a 70 per cent market share, DJI’s slice of that pie decreased to 54 per cent in 2021, according to industry research firm DroneAnalyst, partially because of US sanctions.