According to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Belarus, Presidential Decree No. 297 "On State Registration and Operation of Civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" has been in effect in the country since September 25, 2023. It prohibits individuals from importing, storing, trading, and operating unmanned aerial vehicles, aircraft models, and spare parts for them into the country. However, the regional division of the popular Russian marketplace Wildberries violates the decree and offers customers delivery of UAVs and aircraft models to the country. This was revealed by monitoring the marketplace's storefronts in September 2024.
For example, a four-rotor radio-controlled aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing with a wingspan of 1.1 meters with three-axis gimbal stabilization, a video camera with high-resolution shooting mode and a flight duration of 60 minutes and a range of 45 km (UAV) was on sale. Or another product – a radio-controlled aircraft with a wingspan of 1.4 m, equipped with a self-return function to the take-off site (aircraft model).
According to the decree, unmanned aerial vehicles used in civil aviation and intended for the carriage of goods and (or) equipped with digital cameras and (or) other equipment that allows performing various functions during the flight, as well as identifiable spare parts for such vehicles that do not belong to military products controlled within the export control system, are classified as unmanned.
Aircraft without a person on board, the flight of which can only be controlled if there is visual contact with them, not equipped with any equipment, used, including for entertainment, with the exception of air toy balloons, kites and flying toys without remote control, are aircraft models.
Minsk fears that thanks to such actions of the marketplace, the risks of using aviation equipment for illegal purposes are growing, including for violating public order, extremist activities, and committing acts of terrorism. And for nine months of 2024, numerous cases of non-compliance with the procedure for using airspace by drones have already been recorded in the country.
As a result, the Deputy Prosecutor General submitted a representation to the director of the Belarusian division of Wildberries, in which he demanded to eliminate the causes and conditions of violation of the law. The actual execution of the act of supervision has been taken under control.
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