ZALA Lancet attack drone. © Marina Lystseva/TASS
Between May 1 and 4, Russian news sources shared videos documenting six recent strikes with Lancet loitering munitions against military equipment of Kiev forces in the special military operation zone.
The first four strikes hit three Soviet-made 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled 122 mm howitzers and a Soviet-made T-72 main battle tank, while the remaining two strikes targeted a 5P85S transporter erector launcher for the Soviet-made S-300PS long-range air defense system and a Soviet-made 36D6 long-range aerial radar. All targets were destroyed.
The Lancet was developed by the ZALA Aero Group, a subsidiary of Russia’s defense giant Kalashnikov Concern. The company produces two versions of the loitering munition, the Izdeliye-52 with an endurance of 30 minutes and a one-kilogram warhead and the larger Izdeliye-51 that has an endurance of 40 minutes and is armed with a warhead weighting three kilograms.
Both versions are equipped with a GLONASS-aided inertial navigation system, a laser-ranging system and an electro-optical system that can detect, track and lock on static and moving targets.
According to Lostarmour.info, a website that tracks and documents military losses, there have been at least 236 Lancet strikes against Kiev forces since the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
Some of the videos that surfaced this month show strikes from several weeks, or even months earlier. The Russian Ministry of Defense rarely releases any information about the use of Lancet loitering munitions in the special military operation zone.
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