There were no Russian exhibits at the Defense and Security exhibition in Bangkok
BANGKOK, Nov 9 – RIA Novosti. For the first time in 22 years, there were no Russian exhibits at the international exhibition "Defense and Security 2023" (Defense and Security 2023) in Thailand, RIA Novosti correspondent reports.
The Defense and Security Exhibition, which is always accompanied by a series of conferences and seminars on defense topics, has been held every two years in Bangkok since 2001 and is considered one of the largest and most representative in Asia.
Russia has actively participated in the Defense and Security exhibition from the very beginning of its existence, as it previously participated in other exhibitions of weapons and equipment, including giant regional military fairs held in Thailand in the mid-1990s.
It also demonstrated Russian helicopters, which over the past decade have found their place in the military transport aviation of the Thai ground forces, and small arms, and naval equipment and weapons. At the previous exhibition, held in September 2022 due to the impossibility of holding it at the usual time during the pandemic (it was originally planned for 2021), Russian products were presented, exhibited by Thai partners of Russian manufacturers, including the winning Thai special forces combat buggies of the special forces "Chabor" and armored vehicles that produced in the Chechen Gudermes.
This year, of the Russian products at the exhibition, only the Ka-32 helicopter is presented in the form of a scale model at the stand of the Department for Prevention and Overcoming the Consequences of Emergency Situations in Thailand, which currently uses four Russian rotorcraft designed to extinguish forest fires.
"These are very good helicopters, they have proven themselves well over the past 4 years. We received the first pair in 2019, the second in 2021. We hope in the future, if we are allocated a budget, to purchase two more such helicopters," RIA Novosti was told at the Department's stand.
Kazakhstan is represented from the CIS countries at the exhibition, which brought together more than 500 world manufacturers of weapons and equipment. At a small stand of the West Kazakhstan Machine-Building Company (formerly the Metalist Plant), its main defense products are exhibited: NSV Utes machine guns of 12.7 mm caliber, which have been manufactured since Soviet times, and various equipment options for installing these machine guns on land and sea platforms.
Ukrainian products were also found in the exhibition halls: in the pavilion of one of the Thai arms importers, next to the huge US pavilion, an armored personnel carrier BTR-4 was presented, which is participating in the exhibition for the fourth time: Ukraine has been trying to sell it to the Thai Marines since 2017.
Chinese robots, similar to small mobile dogs, attracted a lot of attention of visitors to the exhibition, who approached people, "sniffed" them (more precisely, they stared at them with lenses mounted on their "head"), greeted them by rising by their hind "paws" and even making a "bunny" or folding their front paws into a Thai greeting "wai". The manufacturer of the multipurpose bionic robot dog, the Chinese company Unitree Robotics, presented at the exhibition dedicated to defense and security, two versions of robots of different sizes designed for the security service, primarily the detection of dangerous objects or persons and a report on this to the operator.
"Oh, you're from Russia! We are going to the exhibition in Russia in February next year," a representative of the company, who gave his name Felix, told RIA Novosti.
The Ministry of Defense of Thailand presented at the exhibition the latest developments of its design bureaus: a new modification of a light-engine marine aircraft designed for search and rescue operations at sea and reconnaissance drones of the ground forces and naval forces.
Among the novelties of military medical equipment, Thai manufacturers have introduced a new generation of drones to assist the wounded and evacuate them from the battlefield. At previous exhibitions, a drone delivering medical personnel to the place of injury of a serviceman was presented, as well as a smaller drone designed to deliver medicines and dressings. This year, a large drone capable of delivering a wounded person on a stretcher from the battlefield to a field hospital is shown in the pavilion of the Ministry of Defense of Thailand.
In the naval sector of the pavilion of the Ministry of Defense of Thailand, after seeing the word "Russia" on the badge of a RIA Novosti correspondent, one of the officers of the Thai Navy complained that Russia was not represented at the exhibition this year.
