Special Technology Center
St Petersburg maker of the Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone and the Leer-3 airborne electronic-warfare system.
The Special Technology Center (STC, Russian: Специальный технологический центр) is a privately held St Petersburg company. It designs and builds the Orlan family of reconnaissance drones, which have become a fixture of Russia’s war against Ukraine. It was founded in 2001, according to the investigative outlet iStories, mainly by graduates of the Budyonny Military Academy of Signal Corps. iStories named Roman Agafonnikov as general director and Colonel Alexei Terentyev and Oleg Tsarik among the co-owners. By the same account, revenue reached about 14 billion rubles in 2021, almost ten times its level a decade earlier.
Ukraine’s military intelligence describes STC in its sanctions register as the developer and manufacturer of the Orlan-10, Orlan-30 and Orlan-50 drones supplied to the Russian Ministry of Defence. The register also lists the Leer-3 airborne electronic-warfare and signals-intelligence system, the Filin-I drone detector, satellite-communications and information-security equipment, and radio-reconnaissance modules for Kronstadt’s Orion drone. iStories also links the company to the Monokle mobile spyware.
STC has been under US sanctions since December 2016, when it was listed for supporting Russian military intelligence (GRU) signals work. The UK, Canada, Japan and the EU followed in 2022, and Ukraine and Switzerland in 2023. The sanctions have not cut off its supply. A joint 2022 investigation by RUSI, Reuters and iStories traced more than $25 million in Western components bought through intermediaries between January and October 2022. The main channel was SMT-iLogic, a firm registered at the same address. Parts in the Orlan-10 came from Analog Devices, Microchip, Texas Instruments, Xilinx, Altera, u-blox, STMicroelectronics and the Japanese engine maker Saito. In January 2024 InformNapalm analysed documents leaked by Ukrainian hackers. They described a production site at 150 Piskarevsky Avenue, St Petersburg, and a turn towards Chinese suppliers such as T-Motor and Radiolink, alongside Sony cameras and Gpixel image sensors.
TASS reported in February 2024 that the company claimed an output of more than 1,000 Orlans a year. That figure has not been independently verified.