INFLATABLE weapons aid Russian military

     RUSSIA is secretly deploying life-size INFLATABLE weapons in a bid to trick Western satellites scanning for Vladimir Putin's military movements.

     The blow-up balloon airforce is intended to fool surveillance jets into thinking Russia's arsenal is larger than it actually is.

     Among the make-believe weaponry are MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters, T-72 and T-80 main battle tanks, and a complete inflatable version of a S-300 surface-to-air missile system.

     They are supposedly believable up to 200 metres away but can de deflated in minutes, making them a versatile and cheap alternative to real machinery.

     The decoy weapons are made by Rusbal, a company that provides Russia's Ministry of Defence with blow-up tanks, jets and missile launchers.

     Aleksei Komarov, the military engineer who helped create the inflatables, told the New York Times: "If you study the major battles of history, you see that trickery wins every time.

     "Nobody ever wins honestly."

     The firm specialises in hot air balloons but also produces weapon models including low-altitude radar machines.

     A T-80 tank weighs 154 pounds, costs about £10,000, and packs down into just two duffel bags.

An entire battalion of 31 fake tanks costs around £300,000 and takes just two and a half hours to set up.

     Rusbal director Maria Oparina admitted there was "a lot of skepticism" at first but now the company is exporting the balloons around the world.

     The firm made around £2million of inflatable S-300 antiaircraft missile systems to sell to Iran.

     It started life as a Russian toy company in 1993 by a hot air balloon enthusiast before straying into military replicas.

     Wartime deceptions have been common practice for centuries, with the allied forces tricking the Germans into thinking it was going to launch the D-Day landing from another part of France using dolls instead of soldiers.