- Ukrainian drones flew more than 1,100 km to hit a Russian missile corvette in the first strike on the Baltic Fleet of the war
- The damage was extensive — the corvette burned for hours
- Changes to the Fire Point FP-1 drone, including a bigger warhead, explain why
On 3 June, at least one attack drone from the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces flew more than 1,100 km to strike a Russian navy missile corvette drydocked in Kronstadt, in the Baltic Sea just offshore from St. Petersburg. It was the first hit on Russia's Baltic Fleet of the wider war.
The Fire Point FP-1 drone hit the corvette Boikiy. Overhead satellite imagery confirmed the strike, and a video from the adjacent pier made clear how bad the damage is. The 105-m corvette, one of the Baltic Fleet's frontline warships, "burned for hours," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Mark Krutov noted.
The FP-1's design explains the heavy damage. "It seems that drone was carrying quite a substantial payload," Krutov mused.
It's true. Ukrainian drone-maker Fire Point has been tweaking the propeller-driven FP-1 to increase its explosive firepower, finally addressing a longstanding problem with Ukraine's deep strike drones. Fire Point claimed it produces 300 of the $50,000 FP-1s and similar FP-2s every day.
The first version of the FP-1 flew 1,000 km but, like many Ukrainian drones, carried a fairly small warhead weighing just 60 kg. The earliest FP-2s traded away fuel for explosive payload and thus struck with a 105-kg warhead, albeit at much shorter range.
It wasn't enough firepower to destroy the toughest targets. Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight blamed the "relatively small warhead size of certain Ukrainian drones" for the limited damage Ukrainian strikes inflicted on Russian refineries in 2024.
It was a serious problem but an understandable one. Ukrainian drone developers were focused on boosting the range of their drones in order to inflict some damage, even if modest, on the most distant Russian targets. "Given the long distances these drones must travel, increasing their warhead size would require adjustments to weight, fuel capacity and overall design," Frontelligence Insight explained.
With time, developers found a way to add firepower without sacrificing range. In March, Fire Point co-founder Denys Shtilerman told Army TV that the company had redesigned the FP-1 and FP-2, adding fuel tanks inside the wings in order to free up space for bigger warheads.
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Now the FP-1 can strike with a 105-kg warhead. The short-range FP-2 now packs an impressive 158-kg warhead. It's not clear which variant hit Boikiy, but the heavier payload is consistent with the damage.
The FP-1 and FP-2 carry an OFB-60-type blast-fragmentation warhead, with a TNT main charge boosted by the more powerful OKFOL explosive. The combination delivers heavy fragmentation and blast effects on impact — designed to start fires and damage internal systems rather than punch cleanly through armor.
That's well-suited to anti-ship strikes. Modern warships aren't normally heavily armored above the waterline, and a blast-fragmentation warhead that ignites cable routes, ventilation channels, and the spaces between decks can do as much damage through the fire it starts as through the initial explosion.
Ukrainian defense outlet Defense Express, analyzing the strike, argued that the post-strike fire likely did more damage to the corvette than the warhead itself. Naval fires spread through cable runs, ventilation shafts, and the spaces between decks — reaching equipment well beyond the impact point. And in a dry dock, with watertight doors propped open for maintenance and automatic firefighting systems offline, the fire spreads further than it would at sea.
It's not clear that the drone that hit Boikiy inflicted maximal damage. But it inflicted enough to take the ship out of commission, possibly for good — and to demonstrate that the Baltic Fleet's home port is no longer beyond reach.
