European components used to harden Myanmar weaponised drones

Following a military coup in Myanmar in February 2021, the United Nations General Assembly passed a  resolution  (75/287) calling on states to prevent the flow of arms into the country. A number of states, including Canada, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the EU, have adopted  sanctions against the State Administration Council (SAC) , the entity that has been exercising Myanmar’s state functions since the coup. The EU first introduced an arms embargo in 1996 and since 2018 has strengthened restrictions targeting Myanmar’s military regime.

In late 2024, a CAR field investigation team deployed to the region officially known as Kayah State—referred to locally as Karenni State—and documented two advanced navigation modules that had been recovered from downed UAVs previously operated by the SAC.

The modules that CAR documented in Myanmar are high-precision global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers with built-in anti-interference capabilities. These capabilities ‘harden’ UAVs against electronic countermeasures that disrupt a UAV in flight, such as jamming and signal spoofing. The SAC has integrated these modules into rotary UAVs that it has modified to carry out attacks. CAR has additionally observed evidence of a third module in a UAV recovered in Chin State, near the country’s western border.

A modified rotary quadcopter UAV containing an integrated GNSS module with anti-interference capabilities, documented by CAR investigators in eastern Myanmar in 2024.