German company delivers new type of kamikaze drone to Ukraine (translation in comments)

3 comments

1. *Translation*:

   **The arms manufacturer Donaustahl (Danube steel) claims to be the only German company that develops kamikaze drones. The company has now received permission to deliver its weapon system, called Maus, to Ukraine. The first buyer is a special unit of the secret service.**

   The Federal Ministry of Economics has approved the German arms company Donaustahl to manufacture and export FPV (First Person View) drones of the Maus type. The first customer will be the Ukrainian special unit Kraken, the company announced on X.

   According to the company, the Maus (mouse) system can be used for kamikaze attacks with a warhead, for attacks against infantrymen and in combat against tanks. The combat range is five to seven kilometers. A modular design with a “quick click system” allows the warhead to be changed easily. According to the manufacturer, this makes the Maus the world’s first adaptable drone for day and night operations.

   Donaustahl from Bavaria started out in 2020 to equip sports shooters. Since the war in Ukraine, however, the company has transformed itself into an armaments and technology company in the wake of the war in Ukraine. “To my knowledge, Donaustahl is the first and only German company to develop pure combat drones and will soon be moving into series production,” said managing director Stefan Thumann about the kamikaze drone Maus to the editorial network Germany (RND) in April.

   The mouse is not intended for the Bundeswehr, but for Ukraine, says Thumann. The Bundeswehr is far too bureaucratic to react to the rapid developments in the drone sector. “For us, it is therefore not relevant at the moment to approve our products in Germany for the Bundeswehr,” says Thumann. “It hurts my heart, but with their structures, the Bundeswehr will probably not get my products in the foreseeable future. I would have to spend so much money on bureaucracy that I could build 5,000 drones with it.” Therefore, he prefers to give his drones to the Ukrainians, “because they are currently the only ones effectively ensuring that the Russians are not standing somewhere in Warsaw or Berlin again tomorrow.”

   The Kraken Infantry Regiment was founded in Kharkiv shortly after the major Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2024. The unit is under the military intelligence service HUR and reportedly played a key role during the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region in autumn 2022. Last October, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the unit for its “outstanding performance on the battlefield.”

2. Let’s test’em out. Happy hunting.

3. Now that’s a headline (check your history books): Russian tank destroyed by German Maus.