Breaking new ground in crowd control, Russian riot police ordered new trucks equipped with non-lethal guns that are to fire giant shuttlecocks at unruly protesters, media reported.
The pneumatic gun, so far bearing the straightforward title Volanomyot, or “Shuttlecock Shooter,” will be able to shoot containers that look like a badminton projectile, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily said.
The anti-crowd shuttlecocks can be fired at the rate of 60 units per minute, the report said on Tuesday. They weigh between 5 and 30 grams and can be loaded with paint or pepper spray.
A hit from the lightest shuttlecock can be compared to a “swat from daddy’s belt,” while the heaviest feels like a horsekick, an unnamed representative for the developer was cited as saying.
Shooting the gun is similar to playing a first-person shooter videogame, the developers said, adding a touch of strangeness to their already odd invention.
Though the weapon is supposed to be non-lethal, a pig was killed by several bursts of shuttlecocks during testing last year, the developers said. The force of the projectile’s impact was decreased after the creature’s demise.
Dodging a shot is nearly impossible, but it will not hurt too much, a man who attended a similar testing said on air of Russian News Service radio on Wednesday.
Russian police have a “colossal demand” for new non-lethal weaponry because traditional means of crowd control such as tear gas and electric shockers are dangerous and have been known to kill protesters, Komsomolskaya Pravda said. Water cannons are safer, but only in warm weather, which renders them unusable for most of the year in Russia's frigid climate.
The gun was commissioned by the Interior Ministry in 2009 and costs a very modest 5 million rubles ($150,000) to produce. It remained unclear when riot police may add it to their equipment.
Russian law enforcement personnel have been training to suppress angry crowds since 2004, when the leadership of neighboring Ukraine was ousted in street protests dubbed the “Orange revolution,” security analyst Andrei Soldatov told RIA Novosti.
Mass anti-Kremlin rallies have been ongoing in Moscow since December, turning violent during a May 6 demonstration when protesters clashed with police. A new opposition rally is set for June 12.
Shuttlecock swatting got a surprising and short burst of state endorsement in October, when then-President Dmitry Medvedev recorded a video where he appeared toting a racquet along with his future successor Vladimir Putin to promote the sport.
The stint generated a storm of ridicule in the Russian blogosphere and was later recognized by Medvedev’s spokeswoman Natalya Timakova as her greatest PR fiasco.
