Stephen Trimble from the DEWline reports

Russia’s strange absence of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) stands out among the world’s biggest military spenders. The idea of home-grown, medium-altitude UAV for surveillance and strike is certainly not some US and Israeli fetish. China has the Pterodactyl (also known as Wing-Loong), India has the Rustom. Even relatively smaller spenders, like the United Arab Emirates, has an indigenous medium altitude UAV – the Adcom Smart Eye. In Brazil, Avibras is testing the Falcao. Pick a country and there’s probably somebody developing or operating a medium-altitude UAV.

But not Russia.

Some of that mystery was cleared up by a YouTube video uploaded on Friday. It shows the ultimate fate of the Vega Stork — Russia’s answer to the Predator. That was until 18 January 2010, when the Vega reportedly crashed on take-off during a demonstration flight. This video is likely the record of that ill-fated test.

Full article here http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2011/09/video-crash-that-dashed-russia.html

Quite why they continued that take off run we shall never know!