The blow of Ukraine has collapsed the production of the most effective drone of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation – Forbes
In Russia, the production of Lancet attack drones has sharply decreased after the successful strike of Ukraine.
Lancet attack drones are considered to be perhaps the most deadly and effective in service with the occupation army of the Russian Federation. The Russians began to use them especially actively at the front in the summer of 2023, which caused the APU a lot of trouble. Against the background of this success, the Russians began to rapidly increase the production of these UAVs, but recently something went wrong.
This is what Forbes writes about.
Since September 2023, the number of Russians using Lancets on the battlefield has collapsed by more than half compared to July. This has affected the combat capability of the occupiers.
The reasons for this decline remained unknown for a long time. However, recently the Ukrainian OSINT group Molfar has lifted the veil of secrecy about the problems of Russians with the Lancets. She claims that the reason was a targeted strike by the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
On August 9 last year, powerful explosions occurred at the Zagorsk Optical and Mechanical plant in the Russian suburbs. This military enterprise specializes in the creation of optical and optoelectronic devices. She probably supplied the Lancet manufacturers.
During that incident, about 30 people were injured at the plant, and there was serious damage to the military facility. And although Moscow officially denied this fact, eyewitnesses reported that the company was attacked by Ukrainian attack drones.
And before that, the company Piro Ross, which supplies the Russian army with explosives, came under attack by the UAV. There is reason to believe that she was also involved in the production of the Lancets.
It was after the “Bavovna” at the plant near Moscow that the production of Russian UAVs collapsed sharply.
“After the explosion of the ZOMZ, Ukrainian analyst Dmitry Snegirev reported (…) that the object was most likely associated with the production of components (presumably lenses for cameras or other optics) for the CUBE and Lancet drones from ZALA Aerospace… We asked Snegirev about the source of this information. He replied: “Our special services. Without clarification.” There is no proven link between ZOMZ and ZALA. But the explosion seems to have had an effect,” the article says.
According to observers, the peak of the use of “Lancets” was July and August 2023. At that time, 135 and 126 such cases were recorded, but since September there has been a sharp collapse to 59.
“Instead of a sharp increase, production of the Lancet had to be reduced. In August, something happened that prevented ZALA from turning the Lancet case into finished products,” writes Forbes. Most likely, it was the emergency at the optical plant near Moscow that paralyzed production, disrupting the supply of sensitive parts to the UAV.
It was only by January 2024 that the Russians managed to restore the previous production volumes of the Lancets.
Previously, the Dialogue.UA reported that the Russian Federation produces much more mini-drones than Ukraine, Forbes reported.
We also wrote that a group of drones attacked a warehouse with kamikaze drones in Bryansk.
