Ukraine is “grateful” to Russia for its latest attack on Kyiv, says Serhii Beskrestnov, the advisor to the defense minister. For this operation, the Russians launched 40 Lancet drones toward the capital without warheads.
A feature of the attack was that the Lancets were dropped directly into the central square of Kyiv - Maidan. This could create an image of Russian technology advancement.
Lancet “show”: why does Russia need this?
According to him, Ukraine’s air defense has recently been very effective, while Russian officials need to provide Vladimir Putin and the Russian public with at least some notable “successes.” This is how the information campaign “Lancets against Kyiv” emerged.
“Since the Lancet is a short-range strike system with a range of 30–80 kilometers, they wait for favorable winds toward the capital, find the closest launch point to Kyiv, and launch from there,” Beskrestnov explains.
The chances of a standard Lancet flying 200 km to Kyiv are effectively zero.
Therefore, for this operation, the Russians used Shahed drones carrying fragments of Lancet missiles, and on the morning of 17 March, the entire swarm headed toward Kyiv.
According to him, the Russians removed the warheads from the Lancets and replaced them with additional batteries, upgrading older batteries with newer, more advanced ones.
“At such distances, it is possible to control Lancets via radio channel at an altitude of 1.5 km, but not to guide them all the way down to strike the ground. But that wasn’t the objective," he states.
The entire formation stretched across different altitudes from Chernihiv to Kyiv during the flight.
Air defense response: Ukraine gains experience
“Our agencies performed well. Only a few units from the swarm somehow reached Kyiv, and they caused no damage, although debris did fall near Maidan,” Beskrestnov says.
Why use electric Lancets for such a demonstration when there are more suitable systems?
“I think the hype around the Lancet in Russia had faded, and manufacturers needed a strong narrative to secure new procurement contracts,” he added.
In his view, Ukraine can be “grateful” to the Russians for this operation for several reasons:
- These 40 Lancets could have caused serious damage if used against equipment and personnel at the front or against substations.
- Ukraine gained additional practice in detecting and countering small aerial targets.
- There is now an opportunity to study the electronics of the downed Lancets.
