Ukraine invasion: Chinese drone maker DJI denies its products are used by Russian army after European retail giant removes them

German multinational retail chain MediaMarkt says it has removed DJI merchandise from its shelves
DJI says all its products are designed for civilian purposes and cannot meet military requirements

DJI

Jiaxing Li

Published: 8:00pm, 29 Mar 2022

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Chinese drone maker DJI denied accusations that the Russian army had been deploying the company’s drones for military activities in Ukraine after a German retail giant took down its products.

“We are aware that on 24 and 25 March social media accounts of our business partners were subject to what appeared to be a coordinated campaign making false allegations against DJI via thousands of spam messages containing the same content,” the Shenzhen-based company said on Monday.

“The allegations made against us are not based on facts and are utterly untrue.”

The response came after German multinational retail chain MediaMarkt announced on Friday that it had removed DJI merchandise from its shelves owing to allegations on Twitter that the Russian military was using products and data from the Chinese firm to attack Ukraine.

Ukraine drone enthusiasts sign up to repel Russia, but worry over China’s DJI

Accusations that DJI drones were being used in the Ukraine war started to surface on the internet earlier this month.

On March 16, Ukrainian Vice-Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in an open letter addressed to DJI founder and CEO Frank Wang that Russian troops have been using the firm’s products to navigate missiles in his country. He asked the company to stop doing business with Russia.

DJI denied the allegations, calling it “complete nonsense” in an interview with nationalist Chinese news website Guancha on Monday.

“DJI’s civilian drones are unable to directly guide missiles, and Russia doesn’t need to rely on DJI to trace the locations of drone operators,” the company was quoted as saying.

MediaMarkt, Europe’s largest retailer for consumer electronics, with over 850 stores in 13 countries, said its decision to stop selling DJI products was based on various sources, without elaborating.

The removal of DJI products sent “a clear signal for the values that have the highest priority for us and which we see being attacked in an unacceptable way by Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine”, the company said.

In its reply on Twitter, DJI called these allegations “utterly false”.

“All DJI products are designed for civilian purposes and cannot meet the requirements of military specifications,” the company said on Monday.

The drone maker said it was communicating with MediaMarkt and would continue to work with global partners to develop civil drone technology.

Founded in 2006 in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, DJI has developed into the world’s largest commercial drone seller that counts individuals and governments as users. However, the company has increasingly found itself being squeezed by increasing tensions between the US and China.

Sanctions on Russia prove a headache for Chinese tech firms

In December, DJI, along with artificial intelligence firms SenseTime and Megvii, were added to a blacklist by the US Treasury Department because of alleged involvement in the surveillance of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

After Russia invaded Ukraine last month, Chinese companies also found themselves caught in the middle of a divide between China and the West, with Beijing opposing Western sanctions against Moscow.

Unlike several Western companies that have made high-profile announcements of their decisions to quit or suspend operations in the Russian market, Chinese tech firms from major smartphone vendors and chip makers to ride-hailing platform Didi Global and DJI have continued to operate in the country.