Details have emerged about the Russians’ “victory-obsessed” operation, which managed to drop debris of their own strike UAV on Maidan — a drone that ceased to b

Details of the attack on the capital were shared on March 17 by advisor to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov.

According to him, Ukrainian air defense has recently been working very effectively, while Russian officials urgently need to provide Putin and Russian citizens with at least some symbolic news — thus the information project “Lancet strike on Kyiv” is born.

“For this, they prepare a whole operation involving ‘Shaheds’ and ‘Lancets’. The task is to demonstrate, at any cost, to Russian citizens and leadership fragments of a ‘Lancet’ in Kyiv.

Why specifically the electric ‘Lancet’, when there are much better products for such a show? I think the hype around the ‘Lancet’ in Russia has faded, and manufacturers needed a good story for new procurement”, — Beskrestnov noted.

To carry out the operation, the enemy launched 40 “Lancets” at Kyiv. They were accompanied by “Shaheds” carrying fragments of “Lancets”, and on the morning of March 17, this entire swarm headed toward Kyiv.

“Since the ‘Lancet’ is a short-range frontline weapon with a range of 30–80 kilometers, they wait for favorable winds toward the capital, find the closest point to Kyiv, and launch from there. The chances of a standard ‘Lancet’ flying 200 km to Kyiv are zero”, — Beskrestnov stated.

According to him, that is why the Russians removed the warheads from the “Lancets”, replacing them with additional batteries. Moreover, old batteries were replaced with expensive new-technology ones.

“At such distances, controlling ‘Lancets’ via radio channel at an altitude of 1.5 km is possible, but attacking down to the ground is not. But that is not necessary — the task is different.

This entire procession in flight stretched across altitudes effectively from Chernihiv to Kyiv.

Our agencies did a great job, and only a few units miraculously reached Kyiv from the swarm, which, of course, caused no damage, but a fragment still made it to Maidan”, — Beskrestnov said.

In his opinion, we should even thank the enemy for this operation for the following reasons:

  1. These 40 “Lancets” could have caused serious damage by attacking our equipment and personnel at the front or substations.

  2. We once again practiced detection and countermeasures against small aerial targets.

  3. We now have the opportunity to study the electronics of downed “Lancets”.