At about 4.20 p.m. on Oct 16 a Volkswagen minibus with 8 Russian military specialists aboard came to Petrovsky District in Donetsk. The purpose of their visit was to launch an UAV. The incident of the slaughter of the pro-Russian separatists in Petrovsky forest district had forced the Russians to enhance security and organize a closed investigation of the incident.
According to our observer, at first the Russians launched a helicopter type UAV. It did its job properly and landed safely. Then they launched a plane type UAV, which got off the ground but after a little while it crashed for an unknown reason.
Militants pose with crashed UAV. The picture is illustrative, not from the incident described.
Later on that day militants began to claim that they had spotted a Ukrainian UAV and shot it down by means of a new weapon. It is still not completely clear whether these two events were interrelated or whether the situation was a coincidence. However the fact remains that the Russian specialists had lost an expensive flying machine. This loss has been corroborated from two independent sources.
Author: Roman Burko
Source in Russian: https://informnapalm.org/2296-v-donetske-rossyjskye-voennye-bez-boya-poteryaly-bpla/