Disclosures Highlight Strikingly Limited Scale of Russian Lancet Loitering Strike Drone Employment

The Russia-Ukraine War has entered its fourth year and there are few success stories for the Russian military. The Lancet family of loitering strike drones is one of the notable exceptions to this dynamic. In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine with an army that was, in terms of hardware, for the most part a modernized scaled-down version of the Soviet army as it existed at the end of the Cold War. Russia’s military industry had developed a diverse array of new equipment over the 2010s, but many of the more significant departures from the inherited Soviet arsenal either existed in the form of prototypes undergoing further development or were only available in limited numbers by early February 2022. One such example is the Lancet family of human-in-the-loop single-use propeller-driven loitering strike drones which had been developed over the 2010s but were only deployed in militarily significant numbers from the summer of 2022 onward.

Since its belated introduction in the summer of 2022, the Lancet family of loitering strike drones has become one of a handful of wartime Russian weapons systems to have been successfully employed in what has otherwise been a catastrophic performance for Russia’s military and military industry. As with the (Iranian-designed) Shahed-136/Geran-2 propeller-driven single-use (non-loitering) strike drone and its Russian derivative, the LMUR helicopter-launched long-range anti-tank missile (which was also developed over the 2010s), and UMPK and UMPB guided glide bombs (which in contrast appear to be the products of expedited wartime research and development), the Lancet is one of a handful of Russian weapons systems that is regularly invoked to explain Russia’s ongoing perseverance in a conflict defined by stalemate. Its high profile notwithstanding, recent disclosures by both Russian and Ukrainian sources highlight the strikingly limited scale at which Russia has employed the Lancet family of loitering strike drones to date. Publicly available information suggests that the Lancet family is far from omnipresent across time and space in the Russia-Ukraine War and is moreover unavailable in the numbers Russia requires to change its fortunes in a stalemated conflict. 

This SPAS Consulting briefing focuses on the scale of Lancet employment to date. In so doing, this briefing highlights the enduring limitations of the Russian military and Russian military industry after three years of wartime mobilization. The Russian experience with the Lancet family of loitering strike drones is relevant to countries worldwide. Among other things, the Russian experience with the Lancet highlights the importance of striking the right balance between cost and capability, the importance of stockpiling such munitions, and the importance of designs suitable for mass production in wartime conditions. Above all, the Russian experience with the Lancet family highlights the importance of having a large and diverse arsenal of shorter-range strike munitions to attack battlefield targets located up to 50-100 kilometers behind the frontlines so as to avoid being in the position of Russia, which heavily relies on a what appears to be a decidedly inadequate supply of suboptimal Lancet family loitering strike drones to attack such targets.

Different Approaches to Address the Question of Effects

What effect has the Lancet family of loitering strike drones had on the Russia-Ukraine War? There are multiple ways to address this question. An observer can, for example, focus on the hundreds of videos available online that document what are likely Lancet strikes on Ukrainian military equipment. Similarly, an observer can highlight the sporadic Lancet strikes against targets located several dozen kilometers behind the frontlines, such as those that have targeted combat aircraft and/or high-fidelity decoys of combat aircraft at Ukrainian airfields. An observer can also approach this question from a Ukrainian perspective by interviewing Ukrainian combatants as to how they perceive the capabilities that the Lancet family offers Russia and the threat that it poses to Ukrainian forces. A major benefit of this non-exclusive approach is that it can offer insight into the virtual attrition that the Lancet family inflicts on Ukrainian forces, which is not something that an observer can discern through an analysis of videos documenting Lancet strikes alone. 

In a similar vein, an observer can look at the diminishing importance of the Lancet family in a context in which Russia has emulated Ukraine and now employs tens of thousands of uncrewed armed multirotor drones per month to attack targets at a typical distance of 10-20 kilometers from the frontlines. It bears emphasis that Russia also operates the uncrewed fixed-wing Molniya loitering strike drone design, which is a very crude low-cost – and much lower capability – analogue to the Lancet family. These are all valid analytical approaches to address this issue, but the focus of this SPAS Consulting briefing is on numbers and the specific question of how many Lancet family propeller-driven loitering strike drones Russia has employed to date. 

Social media, whether Telegram or X/Twitter, has become a repository for footage documenting Russian and Ukrainian strikes of various types, including those associated with the Lancet family. Footage of claimed Lancet strikes can be divided into two groups: 

• Footage of Lancet strikes captured by an ISR drone, which captures the distinct cruciform winged airframe of the Lancet as it undertakes a dive toward its designated target

• Footage captured from the Lancet’s nose-mounted sensor, which is transmitted to the remote human operator by way of a radio frequency data link

This second category of footage is distinctive in several respects. The nose-mounted sensor closes in on the target much like an armed uncrewed multirotor drone undertaking its final seconds of flight but flies in the manner of a fixed-wing aircraft and undertakes an often steep dive toward the target. As the Lancet descends in altitude, the nose-mounted sensor stops transmitting moments before impact because the Lancet is no longer within line-of-sight of the antenna through which the remote human operator, typically located several dozen kilometers away, controls the Lancet. Additionally, footage from the Lancet’s nose-mounted sensor is transmitted at a higher definition than the often very low-quality transmissions of uncrewed armed multirotors using analogue signals or the low-cost ISR drones with low-definition cameras that Russia typically employs to find targets for Lancet loitering strike drones to attack. The Lancet’s nose-mounted sensor also includes a distinctive terminal automated target lock overlay as befitting a semi-automated loitering strike drone in which a remote human operator/pilot does not directly fly the uncrewed aircraft with full control authority (which is the case with nearly all armed uncrewed FPV multirotors used to date in the Russia-Ukraine War).

Available Data On Lancet Usage

One of the most valuable open-source data collection efforts undertaken to document Ukrainian losses at the hands of Russian forces is the pro-Russia Lost Armour project, which has compiled a large library of Lancet strike footage. While Telegram, which is widely used by both Ukrainians and Russians, is the main source of combat footage that is uploaded onto X/Twitter and thereafter disseminated even more widely worldwide, it is not clear if the Lost Armour project, which is explicitly pro-Russia, has privileged access to Lancet footage through selective official and/or unofficial disclosures of such footage from Russian combatants. It bears emphasis that Russian military units employing the Lancet family do not share footage of strikes with the aim of raising funds, seeking donations, or gaining recruits in the manner of their Ukrainian counterparts. This is to say that the motivations for disclosing such footage often vary between Russian and Ukrainian combatants and within the Russian and Ukrainian militaries. It is important to note that some Russian units operating armed uncrewed multirotor drones – not Lancet family loitering strike drones procured by the Russian military – also release footage to raise funds, seek donations, and gain recruits.

According to the Lost Armour dataset, there are 3016 documented cases of Lancet use as of 23 February 2025. While observers have long been able to keep tabs on Lancet use in the Russia-Ukraine War through the Lost Armour dataset and other sources, the question of the scale of Lancet deployment took on new importance in February 2025. On 19 February 2025, the ZALA Aero Group, which designed the Lancet family, made a post on its Telegram channel that marked the use of 3000 Lancet loitering strike drones in Russia’s special military operation (i.e., from 24 February 2022 onward). The ZALA Aero Group did not claim to be the source of this figure and instead cited the Lost Armour dataset as its source. In so doing, the ZALA Aero Group, or at least the person or persons that manage its social media presence on Telegram, offered their implicit endorsement of the Lost Armour dataset.

In the absence of official disclosures by the Russian and/or Ukrainian militaries as to the total number of Lancet family loitering strike drones employed – launched – within a given timeframe, observers cannot independently discern the completeness of the Lost Armour dataset. This open-source dataset may conceivably encompass close to one hundred percent of actual Lancet launches – although this is very unlikely for reasons that will be explained below, just fifty percent of actual Lancet launches, or perhaps an even smaller percentage of the total number of Lancet loitering strike drones that have been launched to date. Observers with access to open-source information can turn to the Lost Armour dataset for a minimum value estimate for the numerator but cannot discern the denominator and must therefore accept a heightened level of uncertainty in any analysis concerning the scale at which the Lancet family of loitering strike drones has been employed in the Russia-Ukraine War.

While the Lost Armour dataset is of great value to observers, it has discernible limitations. Available footage of Lancet strikes captured from the nose-mounted sensor is either officially or unofficially released by Russian military personnel who unsurprisingly have an incentive to only share or at least highlight footage of successful, or at least plausibly successful, Lancet strikes. Stated differently, Russian military personnel, like their Ukrainian counterparts, face incentives to not share footage of a Lancet crashing due to technical failure and/or human error, footage of Lancet missions in which Ukrainian and/or Russian electronic warfare interferes with the radio frequency communications link, as well as footage from the sensor feed of a nearby ISR drone that captures an attempted Lancet strike that misses its intended target. It bears emphasis that Russian military personnel need not engage in wilful deception: a remote human operator may think that he successfully attacked a target vehicle based on footage transmitted by the nose-mounted sensor in the moments prior to the loss of line-of-sight only for the Lancet to be caught in camouflage netting and/or fail to detonate (confirmation of such incidents comes from pictures and video captured and shared by Ukrainian military personnel). This is why an external sensor, which is typically hosted on a nearby ISR drone, is critical to assessing the destructive effects of a Lancet as is the case with any other munition. An external sensor is also key to discerning whether a target, typically a Ukrainian vehicle, is damaged or destroyed and whether the damage is readily repairable. 

More generally, some Lancet airframes are never launched due to damage or destruction prior to launch. The Ukrainian military actively hunts Lancet units with the aim of damaging or destroying Lancet airframes on the ground as well as wounding or killing Lancet launch crews and operators. Since autumn 2024, Ukraine has also employed armed uncrewed multirotors to intercept not only Lancet loitering strike drones but also the various ISR drones that Lancet units rely on to both locate targets to attack with Lancet loitering strike drones and to conduct damage assessment on the intended target.

The Lost Armour dataset, which records documented Lancet strikes – not launches, does not capture all of these dynamics. More generally, the Lost Armour dataset only tracks usage of the Lancet and not production output. Examinations of Lancet debris have repeatedly highlighted Russia’s reliance on imported components to sustain Lancet production. Many of these commercial off-the-shelf components are subject to export controls when it comes to export and re-export to Russia and can therefore amount to a bottleneck in production output. It is therefore possible Russia stockpiles Lancet loitering strike drones to sustain a certain launch tempo or, alternatively, that Lancet units are at the end of an unreliable just-in-time like logistical system that results in a highly variable launch tempo that is additionally affected by environmental conditions on the battlefield.

How Many Lancet Loitering Strike Drones Has Russia Used To Date?

As noted earlier, the ZALA Aero Group’s Telegram account made a post referring to the Lost Armour dataset’s tabulation of 3000 documented Lancet strikes. This is a large and seemingly impressive figure in absolute terms. But what does it indicate about Lancet usage in the Russia-Ukraine War? The Lost Armour dataset records documented Lancet strikes from July 2022 to the present. The dataset is likely to be a lagging indicator of Lancet strikes with regular delays of several days if not several weeks. As a result, the figures for early 2025 are likely to be an undercount. 

The Lost Armour dataset records 3016 cases of documented Lancet strikes – not launches – from July 2022 through 23 February 2025 (the cutoff date for the purposes of this briefing). Table 1 breaks down this total into Lancet strikes – not launches – recorded in the Lost Armour dataset by year. It also lays out the percentage of documented Lancet strikes by year, the average number of documented Lancet strikes per 30-day month in a given year, and the average number of documented Lancet strikes per day in a given year.

Table 1 highlights that the vast majority – 62.59% – of the 3016 documented Lancet strikes – not launches – recorded in the Lost Armour dataset took place in 2024. This is not surprising given that the Lancet family was reportedly first used in the summer of 2022 and it took time for Russian industry to not only ramp up production but do so in an environment in which the peacetime supply chains for the primarily commercial off-the-shelf components, which are sourced from manufacturers outside Russia, was disrupted. The figure for documented Lancet strikes in 2024 is particularly interesting given that Ukraine not only claimed to have intercepted large numbers of Lancet drones, as well as ISR drones supporting Lancet units, in that year but also released extensive footage documenting such interceptions with armed uncrewed multirotor drones in the last four months of 2024. As a result, the Lost Armour dataset's total number of documented Lancet strikes – the Lost Armour dataset does not compile footage of Lancet launches – for 2024 is likely to be a poor proxy for Lancet launch activity in the last third of 2024.

Table 1 also specifies the average number of documented Lancet strikes per 30-day month and per day in a given year. While the total of over 3000 documented Lancet strikes that is recorded in the Lost Armour dataset and highlighted by the ZALA Aero Group is perhaps impressive in absolute terms, the frequency of documented Lancet strikes – not launches – is strikingly low: an average of just 157.33 documented Lancet strikes per 30-day month and an average of just 5.24 documented Lancet strikes per day even in 2024, which is the year in which 62.59% of the 3016 documented Lancet strikes recorded in the Lost Armour dataset took place. It bears emphasis that the 2024 figure is of particular analytical importance because it is the only complete year in which Russia’s military industry is likely to have been fully mobilized to support Lancet production. A full calendar year also helps to account for variance in combat conditions along the frontlines as well as seasonal environmental conditions that can affect the practicality and effectiveness of Lancet operations on a given day. Simply stated, the Lost Armour dataset indicates that the Lancet was a remarkably uncommon system in the Russia-Ukraine War throughout 2024.

While interesting, the figures in Table 1 only capture the frequency of documented Lancet strikes – not launches – and highlight the analytical importance of the duration of the conflict. The Russia-Ukraine War is, of course, a protracted conflict that recently entered its fourth year. It is, moreover, a conflict waged over a very large area. Observers therefore need to discern the average number of documented Lancet strikes in a given time interval per segment of the frontline. To ascertain these figures and thereby develop a more holistic appreciation of the implications of the Lancet family of loitering strike drones in the Russia-Ukraine War, observers need to first estimate the length of the frontlines in this conflict.

Since the withdrawal of Russian forces from positions west of the Dnieper in November 2022, the Russia-Ukraine War has been primarily waged over around 1,000 kilometers of actively contested frontage. As of this writing in late February 2025, this includes some 600 kilometers of actively contested terrestrial frontage east of the Dnieper as well as some 400 kilometers of riverine frontage which includes land previously submerged by the Kakhovka Reservoir. While Russian and Ukrainian ground forces primarily take up defensive positions along this riverine frontage, both sides regularly subject opposing forces across the Dnieper to artillery fire and, more to the point, regularly use armed drones of various types to do the same. 

Since May 2024, Russia and Ukraine have respectively opened – reactivated – two fronts along what was previously an almost wholly inactive frontage along the hundreds of kilometers of the international border west of the Oskil River. This includes the Vovchansk sector of Ukraine’s Kharkiv province and the Sudzha sector of Russia’s Kursk province. The Vovchansk sector amounts to around 50 kilometers of actively contested frontage and the Sudzha sector amounts to around 90 kilometers of actively contested frontage. This results in a total of around 750 kilometers of actively contested terrestrial frontage as of late February 2025 as well as some 400 kilometers of riverine frontage. In addition, there are some 900 kilometers of mostly inactive frontage along the rest of the international border (excluding the actively contested Vovchansk and Sudzha sectors). These segments of the international border are not actively contested in terms of even sporadic ground combat and are very thinly garrisoned relative to the actively contested frontlines that stretch across Ukrainian territory from the international border to the Dnieper. There are, however, occasional small unit raids, artillery fire, and attacks using various types of armed drones along the primarily inactive segments of the international border.

For the present purposes, it is productive to leave aside the Vovchansk and Sudzha sectors and instead focus on an analytically convenient round number of 1000 kilometers of actively contested frontage (60% terrestrial, 40% riverine). It is also productive to assume a maximum practical range of 40 kilometers for a given Lancet launch unit. It should be noted that this assumption reflects not the maximum range of the drones of the Lancet family, which has to date been deployed in at least two versions with different maximum ranges, but a maximum practical range that not only takes into account loiter time but also the high level of threat that units will encounter from Ukrainian artillery and armed drones when operating within 20-30 kilometers from the frontline (i.e., it is simply not practical to regularly launch Lancet loitering strike drones from locations very close to the frontlines with the aim of maximizing the depth of penetration into Ukrainian controlled territory). To cover this 1000 kilometers of notional actively contested frontage with such notional Lancet units, Russia will need to deploy a minimum of 25 notional Lancet units. The size, structure, and table of equipment for said notional Lancet units are analytically unimportant for the present purposes. 

Supposing that the Russian military expects that each of these 25 notional Lancet units is to undertake an average of just one Lancet launch – just one attempted Lancet strike – per day, the Russian military will require 25 Lancets per day, 750 Lancets per 30-day month, and over 9000 Lancets per year. The Lost Armour dataset, of course, only records a total of 3016 documented Lancet strikes – not launches – from July 2022 through 23 February 2025. In 2024, the year in which 62.59% of documented Lancet strikes recorded in the Lost Armour dataset took place, the dataset records a total of just 1888 documented Lancet strikes over a 12-month period, which is to say an average of less than 158 Lancet strikes per month and just over 5 Lancet strikes per day. Evidently, if the Lost Armour dataset captures most Lancet launches, an assumption that will be reexamined later in this briefing, Russia will be unable to support a launch tempo averaging just one Lancet per day per notional Lancet launch unit over a notional 1000 kilometers of frontage. Given the total of 1888 documented Lancet strikes – not launches – over 2024 recorded in the Lost Armour dataset, each of these 25 notional Lancet units would be able to sustain an average of less than 0.207 Lancet launches – attempted Lancet strikes – per day over a 12-month period.

Perhaps a notional 1000 kilometers of actively contested frontage does not accurately reflect the everyday realities of the Russia-Ukraine War. The approximately 400-kilometer long riverine sector is a low priority for both Russia and Ukraine and the vast majority of combat activity takes place along the 600 or so kilometers of actively contested frontage east of the Dnieper to the international border. An analytically convenient assumption that the Vovchansk and Sudzha sectors instantaneously become inactive largely restricting daily ground combat over a frontage of around 600 kilometers. To cover this 600 kilometers of actively contested frontage, Russia will need to deploy fewer Lancet units with a maximum practical range of 40 kilometers – just 15 notional Lancet units. To sustain an average of just one Lancet launch – attempted Lancet strike – per day over this shorter actively contested frontage, Russia will require 15 Lancets per day, 450 Lancets per 30-day month, and 5475 Lancets per year. The Lost Armour dataset, of course, only records an average of 158 documented Lancet strikes – not launches – per month over 2024, which is to say an average of just over 5 Lancet strikes per day. If the Lost Armour dataset captures most Lancet launches, then Russia will be unable to sustain a launch tempo averaging just one Lancet per day per launch unit over a reduced frontage of 600 kilometers. Given the total of 1888 documented Lancet strikes over 2024 recorded in the Lost Armour dataset, each of these 15 notional Lancet units can only sustain an average of 0.344 Lancet launches – attempted Lancet strikes – per day over a 12-month period.

What If The Lost Armour Dataset Does Not Accurately Reflect the Actual Scale of Lancet Usage?

It is of course possible, even likely, that the Lost Armour dataset, which only records documented Lancet strikes – not launches – does not accurately reflect the actual scale of Lancet usage. Perhaps the official and unofficial Russian disclosures of Lancet use are very much less than complete even in cases in which the loitering strike drone impacts its intended target (irrespective of terminal effects on the intended target). What if the Lost Armour dataset’s recorded totals for documented Lancet strikes – not launches – reflect just 50% of actual Lancet launches in a given timeframe? Will this change the situation? The Lost Armour dataset records a total of 1888 documented Lancet strikes – not launches – in 2024. Doubling this figure will provide an estimated total of 3776 Lancet launches – not strikes – in 2024. This will amount to estimates of an average of just under 315 Lancet launches per month and an average of just 10.34 Lancet launches per day over the course of 2024. With these numbers, Russia would of course be limited to just 10 notional Lancet units capable of undertaking a minimum of just one Lancet launch per day. Perhaps the Lost Armour dataset reflects even fewer – maybe just 25% – of actual Lancet launches in a given timeframe. Quadrupling the Lost Armour dataset’s recorded number of documented Lancet strikes in 2024 will provide an estimated total of 7552 Lancet launches – not strikes – in 2024. This will amount to estimates of an average of just over 629 Lancet launches per month and an average of 20.69 Lancet launches per day over the course of 2024. 

Table 2 highlights the magnitude of the undercount required on the part of the Lost Armour dataset for the Lancet family to be anything other than a very rare sight across the very long frontlines of the protracted conflict that is the Russia-Ukraine War. Perhaps the Lost Armour dataset, which has been of immense value to observers of this conflict, does not accurately reflect the scale of actual Lancet usage. Perhaps the ZALA Aero Group went along with this undercount as part of a convenient public relations exercise that did not require the disclosure of classified information. Some Ukrainian reports indicate that the Lancet family may be far more widely and more regularly employed – launched – than can be inferred from the Lost Armour dataset, which of course only records documented Lancet strikes.

A report from the Kyiv Independent from 21 November 2024 cites the Ukrainian Air Force as the source for an estimate of the use of “around 7,000 Lancet drones against Ukraine as of early November 2024.” The Lost Armour dataset records just 2534 Lancet strikes – not launches – from 2022 to the end of October 2024. That is, the Ukrainian Air Force estimate for Lancet usage, which presumably refers to launches – not strikes – cited in the Kyiv Independent is 2.76 times greater than the total number of documented Lancet strikes – not launches – recorded in the Lost Armour dataset. 

What if the figure of around 7000 Lancet used – launched – through early November 2024, attributed by the Kyiv Independent to the Ukrainian Air Force is correct? There are 28 months between July 2022 and November 2024. If an assumption is made that 7000 Lancets were used over that timeframe, this amounts to an average of 250 Lancets per month and an average of 8.33 Lancets per day in a 30-day month. These numbers are interesting but need to be contextualized. To sustain an average of just one Lancet launch – attempted Lancet strike – per day by 25 notional Lancet units over 1000 kilometers of actively contested frontage, Russia will need 25 Lancets per day, 750 Lancets per 30-day month, and 9125 Lancets per year. To sustain an average of just one Lancet launch – attempted Lancet strike – per day by 15 notional Lancet units over a shorter actively contested frontage of 600 kilometers, Russia will require 15 Lancets per day, 450 Lancets per 30-day month, and 5475 Lancets per year. If the Kyiv Independent’s figure of a total of around 7000 Lancet launches from 2022 to early November 2024 is accurate, then Russia had nowhere near enough Lancets to sustain a launch tempo of just one Lancet per day across the actively contested frontage of the Russia-Ukraine War.

It bears emphasis that the Kyiv Independent’s figure appears to include the second half of 2022 and all of 2023, timeframes in which the Lancet was often not available in large numbers. The Kyiv Independent did not break down Lancet usage by year. It is analytically productive to make a bold assumption that the Lost Armour dataset systematically undercounts Lancet usage by a factor of 2.76 over time. This is, of course, just speculation – observers have no reason to assume that the Lost Armour dataset’s total number of documented Lancet strikes – not launches – amounts to a systematic undercount of actual Lancet launch activity. This assumption nevertheless gives way to a low-confidence estimate for the number of Lancet launches – not strikes – in a given time interval.

The Lost Armour dataset records 1656 documented Lancet strikes – not launches – from 1 January 2024 through 31 October 2024, 778 Lancet strikes over the course of 2023, and 100 Lancet strikes over the course of 2022. This amounts to a total of 2534 documented Lancet strikes through the end of October 2024 of which 65.35% took place over the course of the first 10 months of 2024, 30.7% took place in 2023, and 3.94% took place in 2022. If this distribution of documented Lancet strikes is projected onto to the Kyiv Independent’s total of 7000 Lancet launches by early November 2024, it is possible to develop a low-confidence estimate of 4574 Lancet launches in 2024, 2149 Lancet launches in 2023, and 276 Lancet launches in 2022. Table 3 lays out what this will mean in terms of the average number of Lancet launches per month and per day.

As discussed before, to sustain an average of just one Lancet launch – attempted Lancet strike – per day by 25 notional Lancet units over 1000 kilometers of actively contested frontage, Russia will need 25 Lancets per day, 750 Lancets per 30-day month, and 9125 Lancets per year. To sustain an average of just one Lancet launch – attempted Lancet strike – per day by 15 notional Lancet units over a shorter actively contested frontage of 600 kilometers, Russia will require 15 Lancets per day, 450 Lancets per 30-day month, and 5475 Lancets per year. If the low-confidence estimate laid out in Table 3 is even remotely accurate, then it can be said that Russia was unable to sustain an average of just a single Lancet launch per day if Russia deployed either 25 notional Lancet units over 1000 kilometers of actively contested frontage or even 15 notional Lancet units over 600 kilometers of actively contested frontage. 

A Trump Card That Isn’t

The Lancet family of loitering strike drones have had a significant non-zero effect on the Russia-Ukraine War and this Russian weapon system stands out amidst the catastrophic performance of Russia’s military and military industry. It is, however, important for observers not to overstate the implications of the Lancet family of loitering strike drones, not least in a context in which Russian and Ukrainian disclosures highlight a strikingly limited scale of employment to date.

The number of Lancet family loitering strike drones produced and in inventory determines the number that can be sustainably launched per day, per week, per month, and per year. It also determines the extent to which the Lancet can shape the battlefield along actively contested frontlines that extend for at least 600 to 1000 kilometers. If the actively contested frontlines are divided into 25 or just 15 sectors, and if a given Lancet unit launches an average of just one of these loitering strike drones per day, then Russia will need 5475 to 9125 Lancet loitering strike drones per year. The Lost Armour dataset, however, records just 3016 documented Lancet strikes – not launches – as of 23 February 2025. A Ukrainian media report meanwhile cites a Ukrainian Air Force official as providing an estimate of 7000 Lancet launches – not strikes – by early November 2024. If these numbers are correct, then Russia appears to have been unable to sustain an average of even 15 Lancet launches across at least 600 to 1000 kilometers of actively contested frontlines over the course of 2024, let alone in 2023 or the second half of 2022. 

Taken at face value, the scale of Lancet employment may not appear so important. There are, after all, multiple ways to conceptualize and measure the effects of the Lancet as with any other weapon system. There is also a case to be made that the Lancet family has had disproportionate effects on Ukraine and the Russia-Ukraine War relative to the fairly limited number of Lancet family loitering strike drones that may have been employed to date. It is, however, important to stress that Russia does not employ the Lancet family as mere loitering strike drones. Rather, the Lancet family serves alongside the Iskander ballistic missile as one of the two primary strike munitions that the Russian military uses to attack previously unidentified fleeting and mobile targets detected through various ISR capabilities in the absence of alternatives. The Iskander is of course a far more expensive and precious strike munition than the Lancet and is therefore reserved for particularly high-value targets, such as surface-to-air missile systems, although Ukrainian reports indicate that Russian commanders are sometimes also willing to exchange an Iskander for one or more Ukrainian artillery pieces. Hence, Russia regularly launches Lancet family loitering strike drones to attempt attacks on fleeting and mobile targets even though a propeller-driven loitering strike drone with a cruise speed of less than 150 kilometers per hour is poorly suited to the role. To put this into context, a Lancet has a cruise speed of less than 2.5 kilometers per minute and therefore has a flight time of 20 minutes to reach a target located 50 kilometers away, and this assumes that a Lancet loitering strike drone is ready for immediate launch. 

Although the propeller-driven Lancet is not optimized for attacks on previously unidentified fleeting and mobile targets located several dozen kilometers behind the frontline, the Russian military does not have a practical alternative. The Iskander ballistic missile is too expensive, is also not available in large enough numbers, and is more generally overkill against most targets. The Russian Air Force can in principle employ UMPK and UMPB guided glide bombs against previously unidentified fleeting and mobile targets but does not generate enough sorties or have enough aircraft to do so over an actively contested frontage of 600-1000 kilometers. There is also no indication that the UMPK and perhaps even the UMPB can be reprogrammed by the aircrew in flight and these guided glide bombs therefore appear to be restricted to attacks on preidentified and preprogrammed targets based on coordinates inputted while the host aircraft remained on the ground, not fleeting and mobile targets that are by definition previously unidentified targets. In an ideal world, the Russian military would turn to something along the lines of the American M30 and M31 GMLRS guided rockets, which are carried by the M270 MLRS and M142 HIMARS launch vehicles, for such roles, but the Russian analogues to these guided artillery rocket designs appear to be available in very limited numbers. There is, as such, no alternative to using the Lancet family of loitering strike drones to attempt to attack previously unidentified fleeting and mobile targets on the battlefield – in the sectors in which any Lancet units are deployed.

All things considered, observers have little reason to characterize the Lancet as anything other than a very rare system in the Russia-Ukraine War. The Russian military has, of course, concentrated available Lancet units and airframes in several key sectors and Lancet launches and strikes are therefore far more widespread and impactful in said key sectors. Elsewhere along the very long frontlines of this protracted conflict, Ukrainian units along a given stretch of actively contested frontage are unlikely to encounter any Lancet family loitering strike drones on a given day. Rather than being indicative of Russian strength, the emphasis given to the Lancet family of loitering strike drones by both Russia and Russia’s adversaries highlights the limitations of the Russian military and Russia’s military industry in a conflict that has entered its fourth year.