Wreckage of a russian-made Orlan-10 reconnaissance UAV was discovered in relatively good condition near the infrastructure of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, a major oil company in northern Kazakhstan.
The Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan don't operate such drones, leading to a conclusion that the russian military is the only one who could launch this drone, although Moscow denies the claims, Polish website Defence24 reports.
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A drone has crashed near the village of Uyaly in Kazakhstan, which local publications have called "similar to the French reconnaissance Crecerelle."However, judging by the photo, the crashed drone is a Russian-made Orlan-10 UAV . Considering that this village is located on the… pic.twitter.com/dEmQysbnyE — OSINT Expert (@OsintExperts) February 20, 2025
The national security agencies of Kazakhstan are already conducting an investigation into this episode but the only publicly available evidence is a photo taken at the crash site of the discovered Orlan-10.
Particularly notable is the way russians deny their involvement in this incident: they claim that the drone discovered by their neighbor country was actually a French SAGEM Crecerelle without making any assumptions about where it could have come from.
After all, Crecerelle is an unmanned aerial vehicle produced back in the 1990s featuring a delta-shaped wing, meaning it's nowhere near Orlan-10 in terms of visual similarity.
Defence24 reporters note this is Moscow's way to officially deny its involvement, and at the same time send a signal "yes, it was us but what will you do to us?"
Also, the website describes this episode as a sign of increasing threat from the Kremlin to neighboring countries. Especially when it comes after Kazakhstan refused to play along with russia's cover-up story about the downed Azerbaijani Embraer 190 airliner tragedy.
Defense Express would like to add a few comments. From a formal point of view, Kazakhstan has a fairly powerful air defense architecture which includes 10 batteries of S-300PS long-range air defense systems, two batteries of S-75 missile systems, and one battery of S-200, S-125 and Buk systems. However, the challenges of intercepting a potential enemy spy drone go beyond just having too obsolete of an air defense park with S-75, S-125 and S-200 in their original modernization.
It is also necessary to understand that Kazakhstan has the lowest density of forces and equipment precisely in the northern territories bordering with the russian Federation, and russia, in turn, can exploit this circumstance to conduct false flag operations in this region.
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