The pro-Kremlin milblogger BPLA Inform published a photograph and a brief video clip on its Telegram channel of an unknown Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that was captured on screen as it flew past a Russian drone in an undisclosed location.
Military analysts from a number of outlets including Ukraine’s Militarnyi and BulgarianMilitary.com also began to immediately speculate on the purpose and design of the drone which had a particularly unconventional layout.
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It features a cruciform aft wing and a three-bladed “pushing” propeller mounted at the rear and a fixed forward horizontal wing equipped with typical ailerons (to control roll), while also sporting what appears to be wingtip vertical stabilizers with rudder-like control surfaces (to control yaw). Commentators suggest that the rear wings are used to keep the drone stable while the forward elements control direction and altitude, though Kyiv research analysts cannot tell from the video clip how pitch would be controlled by the forward wing alone.
The feature that got the milbloggers particularly excited was what appears to be two payload bays held closed by duct tape – two bands of green tape at the front-end closure and thinner red strips securing the rear lid.
The milbloggers speculated that the front portion probably houses a camera and /or an explosive warhead while the rear bay contains the electronics for guidance and control. The outlets further speculate that the use of tape suggests the drone is a prototype that has been hastily put together.
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The purpose of the drone is not obvious but, because of its evident speed, set against the background of recent efforts by Ukraine to counter Russian aerial threats over the battlefield, milbloggers are suggesting that this is intended to be used to intercept Russian Shahed or reconnaissance UAVs. If that is the case, it would function as either a kamikaze drone to ram the target or is perhaps more sophisticated and contains some form of proximity fuse to detonate its warhead close to its objective.
One Russian milblogger called for subscribers for help in identifying the device and its purpose, suggesting it was intended as an interceptor of helicopters or Moscow’s fixed-wing drones.
Militarnyi reported earlier that Ukraine was developing new systems intended to counter the large numbers of Russian Shahed kamikaze drones being launched every day. One system envisages launching first-person view (FPV) interceptor drones from balloons tethered close to key installations. It doesn’t seem likely that this is one of those.
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