Myanmar’s junta seeks to regain air edge with foreign night vision drones

Chinese- and Russian-made drones using night vision cameras are giving Myanmar’s military junta an advantage in its war against rebel groups, according to sources on the ground, touching off what one observer termed a “drone arms race” between the two sides.

The new weaponry is upping the ante in Myanmar, where drones were once solely a tool of the armed opposition seeking a cheap way to level the playing field against a far better-equipped military, which seized control of the country in a 2021 coup d’etat.

Since early February, pro-junta channels on the social media platform Telegram have posted video footage of what appears to be military drone bomb attacks on rebel forces in Kachin state’s Bhamo township using either infrared or thermal night vision cameras and causing casualties.