A new Ukrainian kamikaze drone with a range of 1,000 kilometers has gone into mass production.
Herman Smetanin, Director General of JSC Ukrainian Defense Industry (Ukroboronprom), stated this in an interview with Ekonomichna Pravda.
Domestic long-range drones are already being ordered by the Defense Forces of Ukraine for their combat operations against the Russian invaders.
“There are many state and private manufacturers in Ukraine. We have an analog of the Shahed, and there are more powerful models, because Shaheds do not fly that far. We are now focusing on the production of more complex and expensive projects with high performance,” Smetanin said.
According to him, the record combat range of the new Ukrainian drone is 1,000 kilometers.
Last October, Ukroboronprom announced the development of a Ukrainian drone with a range of up to a thousand kilometers.
At that time, the following specifications for the new unmanned combat aerial vehicle were announced: range – 1000 km, weight of the warhead – 75 kg.
In January 2023, the spokeswoman of the Ukroboronprom State Enterprise reported that a new classified Ukrainian strike drone had successfully passed several tests.
It was reported that the new aircraft has a take-off weight of more than 200 kg. Currently, there is no publicly available information about the capabilities and appearance of the classified Ukrainian drone.
Already in June 2023, Ukroboronprom reported the successful use of a new Ukrainian long-range drone.
Nataliia Sad, a spokeswoman of the Ukroboronprom State Concern, published a photo featuring Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Mykola Oleschuk, Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, and Yuriy Husiev, Chief Executive Officer at Ukroboronprom.
She captioned this photo as follows: “After the successful use of our drone for 1000 km.”