The Ukrainian Armed Forces captured the rare strike drone "Swallow-M" for the first time - the drone was introduced in 2021 and has many Western components
Conflict Armament Research for the first time recorded the loss of the newest Russian drone "Lastochka-M".
What we know
It is quite possible that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have already encountered the rare drone, but now the Ukrainian military has managed to capture the Russian drone for the first time. Researchers took it apart and found that there are many foreign components inside the UAV. Experts now intend to figure out how Western technology got into Russia.
A @conflictarm team just returned from #Ukraine, where we saw some pretty recently introduced systems. Here's a short thread showing a couple of them ???? 1/ pic.twitter.com/0uv2EAbo0B
- Damien Spleeters (@damspleet) July 19, 2022
Lastochka-M is a new strike drone for the Russian Army. It was unveiled last year as part of the Zapad-2021 exercise. The unmanned aerial vehicle is designed to defeat enemy manpower and armored vehicles.
And of course, @conflictarm opened these items up and documented their components, many of which were not made in Russia. We will now investigate their chains of supply to determine how Russia was able to acquire them. More on that soon. pic.twitter.com/wbtOWJMoAK
- Damien Spleeters (@damspleet) July 19, 2022
The drone weighs 5.2 kg and can fly 45 km. The maximum time in the air is 2 hours, the peak altitude is 3.6 km. The drone "Lastochka-M" is capable of speeds up to 120 km/h.
For those who want to know more:
- Beautiful video of M777, HIMARS and Javelin destroying Russian tanks, ammunition depots and military bases published
- Canada will send LAV II ACSV armored vehicles with 7.62 mm machine guns to Ukraine in July
- U.S. senators call for sending long-range missiles to Ukraine for HIMARS
- Ukrainian Drone Army sends first DJI Mavic and DJI Phantom drones to the front
- Ukrainian military created a kamikaze drone without waiting for MQ-1C Gray Eagle deliveries
