KazUAV-TerraDrone, Russia’s loophole to the drone market
A drone love story
In December 2024, we started UnderYourNoZ and entered the OSINT scene with a thorough article on the Kornienko “drone” sisters. For those who haven’t read it yet, this piece completed an initial investigation by The Insider, and highlighted the role played by two Ukrainian nationals
turned Russian assets in providing drones from Chinese company Autel Robotics to Ukrainian separatists. It is now very well documented how unmanned vehicles became crucial in modern warfare to ensure battleground superiority over once’s enemy, be it to detect its position or strike it with a commercial — yet weaponized — drone.
From this original “romance”, the UnderYourNoZ team kept a deep interest in the drone industry and its companies, especially when they’re involved in bypassing sanctions related to the Russian war in Ukraine. Therefore, the excellent work by OSINTFlow and the Molfar Intelligence Institute on Russia’s network of companies designed to manufacture Supercam UAVs couldn’t go unnoticed. Let’s remind that these drones are used by Russian troops to fix, adjust fire and eventually kill in Ukraine.
OSINTFlow and Molfar pointed out to several international branches, mostly settled in former Soviet republics (Belarus and Kazakhstan), of a large Russian consortium called “Unmanned Systems” led by Finko LLC and owned by Maxim Shinkevych. Several entities of the group, including Finko, are today sanctioned by the US, the European Union or Japan. The international branches are nevertheless used as shells by Russia in order to keep afloat its drone capacity despite the pressure of sanctions.
Source: www.molfar.institute
One of these companies, KazUAV, caught the attention of the UnderYourNoZ team due to its official link with the Japanese TerraDrone group since 2019. KazUAV was founded in July 2016 by Ruslan Vitvitskiy and Yevgeniy Garkushin. It’s reportedly the official representative of Unmanned Systems in Kazakhstan but it remains free of any restrictions to operate its business worldwide. According to Molfar, KazUAV kept appearing on Unmanned Systems’ website until January 2025.
One can note that Western companies aren’t the only ones to be complicit, deliberately or not, of war crimes as we previously disclosed in our previous stories.
The government of Japan officially supports the enforcement of sanctions against companies linked to the Russian war effort in Ukraine. Yet KazUAV keeps operating despite its direct and known links to a Russian sanctionned company AND a Japanese firm.
Source: https:osintflow.com/news/2024-04-15/
We decided to step on the shoulders of our OSINT brothers from OSINTFlow and Molfar to investigate further on KazUAV. Hoping this might help to rightfully prevent it from doing more harm in Ukraine.
What do we know about KazUAV from OSINT?
KazUAV has a very legitimate online presence, making it quite easy to gather information. Registered on the 29th of July 2016, it’s settled at different addresses according to available data: Barayev str., 16, 201, Astana, 010000, KZ (LinkedIn company page), 11/5 Kabanbai Batyr Av, Nurly Orda Business Center, Block B, office 1103, Astana, Kazakhstan (Facebook company page), Nur-Sultan, Baraeva 16, office 207, Astana (factories.kz).
Searching through several websites and their official Facebook page (UID: 1679294042393844–829 followers), it appears KazUAV commercializes three different kinds of UAVs: SuperCam, AOSSCI and the Chinese DJI. Until May 2025, SuperCam UAVs were the ones put on top by KazUAV before a switch to DJI.
Apart from its Facebook page, KazUAV showcases its news on various social media such as Instagram (kazuav.kz — ID: 28395461184), YouTube (@kazuav450) and — of course –Vkontakte (kazuav). Among their interesting posts is one from May 2018 where the KazUAV team proudly paused for a photo on a conference stand at the KADEX conference in Astana. The name of the Kazakh company can be noticed next to the “Supercam unmanned ru” logo.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=836187336565550&set=a.434393113411643
Pro tip: You want to find useful elements to start your OSINT pivot (email, phone numbers) on a geographical area you don’t master like Kazakhstan? Use local Internet resources like browsers (in our case here Russian Yandex) and company registers like factories.kz or ba.prg.kz.
This helped find the identification number (called BIN: 160740023848) for the company, several phone numbers (+77172781290, +77075355005, +77015336222) and a mail address (info@kazuav.kz). Sadly, we found no further information from the mail address or domain name, even searching through leak data.
Source: www.ba.prg.kz
2019 is a pivotal year. Terra Drone, the Japanese company led by CEO Toru Tokushige, invested heavily in KazUAV to pursue its expansion over global drone industry. He saw an opportunity because of Kazakhstan’s fuel industry and its growing demand for drone surveillance. Established in 2016, TerraDrone reigns over 25 companies and employs more than 500 professionals. Its headquarters are located at the Totate Internation Building 2–12–19 Shibuya, Shibuya-Ku in Tokyo. According to a photo on its Facebook account, Tokushige traveled to Astana in December 2018 to meet with the crew of KazUAV you’ll meet next in our story.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1938779819510667&set=pb.100001360021083.-2207520000&type=3
Source: www.ba.prg.kz
One can also note that the year following the invasion of Ukraine has been quite fruitful for KazUAV. While 2021 and 2022 witness a slight decrease in the turnover of the company, 2023 was a hit with a 90.3% increase followed by a 58.4% increase in 2024. Without further explanation, KazUAV suffered a drop of 64.7% in 2025. Let’s keep it that way until they stop providing Russian forces!
Time to meet the dodgers (and we’re not talking baseball)
The businessman
Drawing from OSINTFow and Molfar, we first focused on KazUAV’s founder Ruslan Vitvitskiy (Руслан Витвицкий) to see what data we’re available online. We easily found several social media accounts on Facebook (r.vitvitski — UID: 1323592286), X (@RVitviski, inactive since 2013), YouTube (@РусланВитвицкий-69д) and LinkedIn.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/r.vitvitski
From these, we were able to assess arm-tattooed Ruslan claims to be from Astana and supposedly still lives there. He apparently studied computer programming at the Institute of Management and Business of Astana, though dates differ between his Facebook (2002–2007) and LinkedIn accounts (2006–2010). What he did before founding KazUAV remains unclear.
Source: www.linkedin.com/ruslan-vitvitskiy-449197184
From his social media, we assessed Ruslan Vitvitskiy is a sports fan who practices biking, hiking, skiing and rifle shooting. He also appears to practice martial arts, having broken his nose during Thai boxing in 2023. We were also able to identify Ruslan’s phone number thanks to a web archive of KazUAV’s website upon which appeared two phone numbers linked to the company: +77172781290 and +77015336222.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20250420101336/http://kazuav.kz/
The latter is linked to a WhatsApp account with a profile picture of Ruslan Vitvitskiy sitting at what looks like his KazUAV’s desk (see the little logo at the front).
WhatsApp profile picture of Ruslan Vitvitskiy
This number is also associated to a Telegram account @Ruslan_UAV which quite obviously belongs to Ruslan Vitvitskiy.
His social network activity led us to more information about his personal life. We found that Vitvitskiy married Katrin Vitvitskaya in April 2013 and has two children, a son born in 2013 and a daughter born in 2021.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/vitvitckaya_/
The engineer
Our next OSINTed fellow is Evgeny Aleksandrovich Garkushin (Евгений Гаркушин) upon which OSINTFlow had already done an amazing research job. The co-founder of KazUAV was born on the 5th of January 1984 in Kazakhstan and lives in Astana. His link to Russia might date back to his student years when he joined the Lomonosov Moscow State University to study at the Mechanics and Mathematics department. After working from 2008 to 2010 at LIGACOM LLP, he eventually founded KazUAV in 2016 and was strongly involved in the deal making with TerraDrone. Visible in the 2018 picture published by Tokushige in its Facebook, Garkushin can also be identified at the left of a TerraDrone employees photo during the first “Terra Drone World Summit” held in Tokyo in March 2019. Two other KazUAV keyplayers we’ll be discussing later on are also present on that picture. So be sure to read the whole investigation!
Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2057502530971728&set=pb.100001360021083.-2207520000&type=3
Note that we didn’t find an Astana-based company named Ligacom but only a firm based in Chisinau, Moldavia.
Garkushin’s social media accounts are easy to identify thanks to his skydive profile picture displayed all over Instagram (garkushin_yevgeniy — UID: 13618929160), Facebook (yevgeniy.garkushin — UID: 100001769150600), Vkontakte and even LinkedIn (евгений-гаркушин-889531188).
Garkushin and his wife seem to use the phone number +77015355005 and the email address gark@racer.kz. Those can be found in the WhoIs section of the aeroclub’s website he directs (aeroclub.kz). The phone number must be of personal use for Garkushin as it is linked to Telegram and WhatsApp accounts displaying the same profile picture found on his other social media accounts.
A tour of his social media displays a great passion for adrenaline sports, be it skydiving, paragliding and gliders — he’s the president of the “Stolichny Aviaclub” –, underwater fishing, snowmobile or dirt motorbiking.
A tour of his social media displays a great passion for adrenaline sports, be it skydiving, paragliding and gliders — he’s the president of the “Stolichny Aviaclub” –, underwater fishing, snowmobile or dirt motorbiking.
Garkushin’s Facebook profile reveals he’s in a relationship with Evgueniya Garkushina (Евгений Гаркушинa) since the 25th of January 2007 and he married her on the 27th of October 2012. Evgueniya was born on the 21st of May 1987 in the city of Ekibastouz. After a time at a major Kazakh IT company (Alseco), she joined the KazUAV’s journey. Since 2019, she fills the position of “project and product manager” but also seems to take care of public relations. She claims though on her LinkedIn account that she’s “open to work”.
Source: www.linkedin.com/Evgeniya-garkushina-a04243250
She’s active on numerous social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Vkontakte where she unveils her passion for artistic makeup, gun shooting and shares very intimate issues like her mid-30s crisis or health issues. She also participates in her husband’s hobbies as she lists herself as founding member of the Stolichny Aviaclub and organizes para jumping sessions in Astana.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/garkovna/
The matchmaker
The joint between KazUAV and TerraDrone might well be Dmitry Ivanov (Дмитрий Иванов).
Source: https://www.miningmagazine.com/investment/news/1367721/terra-drone-invests-in-kazuav Ivanov shaking hand with Garkushin who stands next to Vitvitskiy and Alexander Borovkov (who we’ll discuss later on).
Ivanov is a Russian national born on the 5th of August 1991 in Izhevsk, the very city where Unmanned Systems is settled. He is said to have studied philology at the State University of Izhevsk. After serving a year in the military between 2009 and 2010, he was reportedly a bartender in various bars in his hometown between 2011 and 2015.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/ivanovdmitriy18
Ivanov’s LinkedIn account helps understand his track record. A former Unmanned Group employee (2016–2018), he then filled the position of Business Development Manager for the CIS region at TerraDrone before joining KazUAV from 2019 to October 2020. He went back working in Kazakhstan as CEO of the Atyrau-based drone company Aardvark from August 2021 to August 2022 and from July 2023 to this day. On the side, he also works freelance for the drone industry in Kazakhstan but also India (August to April 2023).
Ivanov can also be spotted on usual Russian social network like Vkontakte (ivanovdmitriy18) and more worldwide platforms like Facebook (ivanovdmitriy18) and X (ivanovdmitriy18) where he exposes his resume and describes himself as “drone entrepreneur”, “husband” and “father of two” (in that order).
Source: https://x.com/ivanovdmitriy18
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-borovkov-a2874860/
Last but not the least, let’s discuss Alexander Borovkov who appears at the center of the TerraDrone employees photo and at the right of the TerraDrone deal photo. He seems to be close to Evgeny Aleksandrovich Garkushin as he appeared in Facebook pictures alongside Garkushin in 2015, before the company was even founded. Both probably met through Evgeniya Garkushkina who used to work for the same company as Borovkov between 2012 and 2015. He must indeed have been among the early birds of the company as he had filed the domain name “kazuav.com” with his personal email a.borovkov@mail.ru while this domain name isn’t actually used today by KazUAV.
Source: www.linkedin.com/alexander-borovkov-a2874860
Borovkov was allegedly born in Astana but we couldn’t determine his date of birth precisely. He studied at the Center for Applied Computing between 2003 and 2008 and appears to have started his career at an IT firm called Dynamics Technologies from 2010 to February 2016. A workplace he shared with Evgeniya Garkushkina as we mentioned before. Apart from being one of KazUAV’s founders, Borovko defines himself as a UAV engineer at the company.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/alexander.borovkov.9
Borovkov is active on Facebook (alexander.borovkov.9 — UID: 100009067434210 ) and Instagram (@alexandr.bor, private account). He seems to have a particular interest in the space field, showcasing photographs of comets passing over Astana or Soyuz launches.
Now what?
Now one has to ask: how does the Kazakh branch of a Russian UAVs company undergoing international sanctions still operates like nothing happened since February 2004? This despite all the evidence available online and easy to find with some basic OSINT. If this is because governments and officials lack time and human power, OSINT groups like OSINTFlow, Molfar and UnderYourNoZ stepped in to fill the gap. The shell companies and the people behind it are clearly identified. Someone has now to take action. For that to happen, we need your help: share this story around you, reach out to underyournoz@protonmail.com for any tip on Russian assets and follow UnderYourNoz — and fellow OSINT groups — across social media. The more it will be known, the less governments will be able to remain silent.
Table of contents
> A drone love story
> About KazUAV
> Meet the dodgers
> The engineer
> The matchmaker
> Now what?
