Russian Lancet Loitering Strike Drone Used To Destroy Ukrainian Antenna Mast
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While Russia’s Lancet family of loitering propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones received a lot of attention among observers of the Russia-Ukraine War in 2022 and 2023, it receded in attention and importance over the course of 2024. The employment of the Lancet family increasingly registers little attention in 2025, given the surfeit of short-range strike munitions that are now available to the Russian Army. This includes armed so-called “First Person Video” (FPV) multirotor drones of both the radio frequency (RF) and fiber optic (FO) uplink/downlink variety, crude and inexpensive fixed-wing loitering “FPV” strike drones—of the RF uplink/downlink variety—such the Molniya and Privet-82, and a growing number of more sophisticated factory-built designs that all fulfill broadly similar function on the battlefield at distances of up to 10-40 kilometers or so much like the larger and comparatively exquisite Lancet family.
While the Lancet family retains several key advantages, these comparatively high-end loitering fixed-wing strike drones encounter increasing competition from far less expensive strike munitions that can be built—and employed—in much greater numbers. As a result, the Lancet family has increasingly become something of a niche capability for the Russian military that is best used as a higher-end adjunct to the aforementioned lower-cost and more plentiful types of strike munitions. While the specific circumstances of the following incident are not public knowledge, a newly released video shared on Telegram offers an example of a relatively high-value but nevertheless very unusual target that seemingly warranted the expenditure of a comparatively exquisite Lancet-3 loitering strike drone.
I covered the installation of an anti-tank landmine as the warhead of a Lancet-3 loitering strike drone in a recent post that also covers the evolving employment of the Lancet family in the Russia-Ukraine War and the modalities of warhead optimization on loitering strike drones more generally:
I have previously covered the strikingly limited scale at which the Lancet family appears to have been employed in the Russia-Ukraine War through early 2025:
According to the pro-Russian Telegram page that uploaded it, the new video shows a Lancet family strike drone targeting the ground equipment of an antenna mast system that was purportedly employed by the Ukrainian military to control unarmed intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and/or armed drones of one type or another. Reportedly located in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv province, the antenna can be seen from the perspective of a Russian ISR drone, which recorded the terminal dive of what is likely to have been a Lancet-3 (Izdeliye-51) loitering propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone.
The video also shows the distinctive footage of single-use fixed-wing loitering strike drones such as those of the Russian Lancet family, which capture the terminal dive that rapidly brings the intended target ever closer into view without any optical or digital zoom. The Lancet family primarily encompasses two distinct designs—the larger, longer-range, and more consequential Lancet-3 (Izdeliye-51) and the much smaller, shorter-range, and lighter Lancet-2 (Izdeliye-52). In such semi-automated human-in-the-loop uncrewed aircraft designs, the remote human operator is in full control over the uncrewed aircraft-turned-munition without manually flying the electrically-powered, propeller-driven fixed-wing aircraft—i.e., without having full control authority in terms of pitch, roll, yaw, and the throttle level—in the manner of most so-called “First Person Video” (“FPV”) drones of both the multirotor and fixed-wing variety. As a result, the Russian ISR drone that monitored the entire engagement did not paint the target with a laser designator—the remote human operator of the Lancet-3 selected the intended target and the onboard autopilot oversaw the terminal dive toward the intended target, which is intended to result in the activation of the impact fuse and consequent detonation of the warhead upon impact.
Although loitering strike drones like those of the Lancet family are semi-automated designs, the use of such electrically-powered propeller-driven uncrewed aircraft, which have a maximum speed of around 100 kilometers per hour, is fairly labour-intensive given the considerable time to target at maximum range and the maximum flight at cruise speeds. While the Lancet-3 is not an automated fire-and-forget system, it is not clear why the remote human operator of the Russian ISR drone lingered to monitor the use of an apparent Lancet-3 against a stationary target that was not going to be relocated over the 20 or so minutes that a Lancet-3 requires to fly to its maximum range. The remote human operator of the apparent Lancet-3 should have been perfectly capable of independently navigating toward and identifying the intended target once its location was transmitted through voice and/or text communication by the remote human operator of the Russian ISR drone and/or associated Russian personnel.
More generally, it is unclear why an apparent Lancet-3 was even used against a stationary target. Previous publicized instances of the use of Lancet family loitering strike drones against stationary targets appear to primarily be cases in which the remote human operator of the electrically-powered (i.e., equipped with an electric battery) Lancet must find a suitable target once he—the Russian Army is a male-dominant organization—receives a “low battery” alert on the display. It is important to note that using the Lancet family and similar loitering strike drones as reusable systems necessitates what amounts to a return flight that will, in effect, halve the nominal maximum-range endurance. If no suitable mobile or semi-mobile target can be found, the Lancet operator is incentivized to do the same as the remote human operators of much less sophisticated and far less expensive human-in-the-loop strike munitions including armed “FPV” multirotor drones: find a target—any target—to attack before the battery is fully depleted and before there is no more scope to trade altitude for airspeed in what will eventually be an unpowered glider (the control system will also power down, thereby making the Lancet unresponsive no matter its operating altitude) that gravity will crash into the Earth.
It is possible that the stationary antenna mast attacked in the new video was selected as a secondary, if not tertiary, target for the Lancet-3. Should this have been the case, it is worth asking why some other strike munition was not previously allocated toward the neutralization of an antenna mast—a seemingly high-priority target that was purportedly used to control Ukrainian drones of one sort or another. All things considered, a Lancet-3 was not the most appropriate weapon system for use against this particular target, and it is possible that a Lancet-3 was used out of necessity. In itself, this video suggests that the Russian Army, or at least Russian Army units that are located and deployed along the actively contested sections of the frontline/international border, is not yet sufficiently well-equipped so as to attack such an important stationary target in a timely manner with a suitable strike munition. While Russia is increasingly experimenting with employing its expanding roster of strike munitions in innovative new ways, the use of relatively exquisite loitering strike drones like the Lancet-3 against stationary targets like antenna masts is unlikely to be a regular occurrence.
