Universities recycle e-cigarettes for use in combat drones

Samara University in southwestern Russia has been exhorting its students to collect and hand in used electronic cigarettes to support the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a report in the Russian independent publication Novaya Gazeta Europe, reports Kyiv Post.

The collection drive has been organised and is being carried out by volunteers from the university’s ‘Falcon patriotic military club’. Instructions were issued in a leaflet handed out on campus and also posted on the social media site VKontakte (Russia’s equivalent of Facebook). The flyer is based on a famous Soviet-era anti-drinking poster, but replaces the glass of vodka with an e-cigarette with the legend “1 e-cigarette = 1 drone attack on the enemy!” It then explains that it is not the e-cigarettes themselves that are needed at the front line, but their parts — microcircuits and batteries — which are repurposed to operate ammunition release systems in combat drones.

The Ukrainian news site Suspilne reported on a similar scheme set up in Chernivtsi Polytechnic College in southwestern Ukraine in April. Its students were recycling components from the e-cigarettes to make the drop mechanisms for drones and ‘powerbanks’ to allow troops in the field to recharge their mobile phones.
Full report on the Kyiv Post site