Russia Is Making Explosive Drones Out Of Toy Hoverboards

By: bitcoin ethereum news|2025/05/02 22:45:01
0
Share
copy
A Russian hoverboard drone explodes. Via WarTranslated It suddenly makes sense why Russian troops in Ukraine were observed with a substantial number of toy hoverboards. A video montage that circulated online on Friday depicts the explosive ground robots—a pair of the two-wheeled hoverboards attached to an anti-tank mine—blowing up purported Ukrainian fortifications presumably somewhere along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 39-month wider war on Ukraine. Last summer, the Dva Mayora volunteer organization in Russia developed the hoverboard unmanned ground vehicles and began distributing copies to Russian units. Half a year later in February, Russians were seen loading a bunch of the $100 hoverboards into a truck somewhere at or near the front. It’s possible they’d received them as donations from supporters back home—or stolen them from Ukrainian homes in the occupied zone. Regardless, it should be apparent now that most of the hoverboards along the front line aren’t for riding—they’re for making one-way explosive drones. Flying robots already dominate the battleground in Ukraine. The hundreds of thousands of tiny first-person-view drones Russian and Ukrainian forces deploy every month account for the majority of battlefield casualties—70 percent, according to The New York Times . By comparison, ground robots are less ubiquitous, and for obvious reasons. It’s easier for a remote-controlled vehicle to fly unobstructed through the air than it is to crawl over rough terrain. Thanks to their internal gyroscopes, hoverboards are extremely stable compared to traditional wheeled vehicles. A hoverboard UGV can speed across the front-line terrain faster than other ground robots. And the low cost of the toys mean the mine-laden ‘bots are expendable. No need for a regiment to save them for only the most valuable targets. That the Russians appear to be using their hoverboards to build exploding robots doesn’t mean they won’t eventually ride them into battle. It’s worth noting the growing prevalence of surplus civilian electric scooters in the inventories of Russian regiments. After losing 17,000 armored vehicles and other heavy equipment in Ukraine, the Kremlin is growing truly desperate for battlefield transportation—and has sent troops on assaults on e-scooters, Lada compact cars, aging GAZ-69 trucks and at least one bus. If and when toy hoverboards become more valuable as assault vehicles than drone components, they too might join the war-scooters and compact cars. At least as an assault vehicle, a hoverboard stands some chance of surviving a battle. As an explosive drone, a hoverboard heads out exactly once. Follow me on Twitter . Check out my website or some of my other work. Send me a secure tip. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/05/02/russia-is-making-explosive-drones-out-of-toy-hoverboards/

You may also like

Looking at Stripe's ambitions and the future of stablecoins from OUSD

Stripe enters the stablecoin network battle with OUSD, a comprehensive look at the third paradigm evolution of digital dollars and the new infrastructure for global payments in the AI era.

Do you want to buy CRCL?

A detailed breakdown of Circle's business fundamentals and valuation logic: The panic over OUSD and the market correction have triggered a short-term mispricing, presenting an opportunity for left-side positioning and legislative speculation below $60.

Wosh: Inflation has cooled in recent weeks, AI is reshaping the economy, and forward guidance has lost its necessity

Federal Reserve Chairman Waller clearly stated at the ECB forum that the Fed will abandon forward guidance on interest rates, with future decisions relying entirely on real-time economic data. He noted that inflation risks in the U.S. have decreased over the past four weeks, but the ultimate impact ...

The most secretive AI winner

A century-old company that sells toilets and produces MSG has seen its stock price soar by "positioning" core materials for AI chips. This article clarifies the explosive opportunities for domestic substitution of semiconductor materials in the A-share market.

Former ByteDance employee's account: How I started with two Pinduoduo hard drives and made six times the profit with Seagate to achieve financial freedom?

A programmer from a big tech company bought hard drives on Pinduoduo and, following clues, managed to accurately capture the sixfold rising stock Seagate using the "finding daily anomalies + 13F institutional verification" framework, making a wild profit of $400,000 and achieving financial freedom.

MiCA reshuffle begins, Binance temporarily bids farewell to the EU

What Binance leaves behind is not scattered retail investors, but a whole batch of high-value users who are forced to liquidate and have almost nowhere to go.

Popular coins

Latest Crypto News

Read more
iconiconiconiconiconiconicon
Customer Support:@weikecs
Business Cooperation:@weikecs
Quant Trading & MM:bd@weex.com
VIP Program:support@weex.com