Russian propagandists spread fake news about 200,000 Lancet attack drones: how many UAVs does the enemy actually have

Recently, Russian television aired a story about the growth in the production of the latest weapon, the Lancet drone. The propagandists claimed that these UAVs are supposedly "invisible" to air defences. This turned out to be a lie.

In fact, there are only about 50 unused Lancets left in Russia. This was reported by The Insider.

"These incredible figures, as it turned out, were taken from a quote from Star Wars, which was recklessly cited by a patriotic channel. In fact, at the beginning of July, Russia had about 50 unused Lancets left," the report said.

It is noteworthy that the Russian Federation has stated that it has allegedly produced 200,000 Lancet drones so far, and that it wants to reach the 1 million mark in the near future.

After the story about the scale of production was released, the real source of the information about the number was found.

"Comrades, we understand everything, of course, but the quote about '200,000 ready, another million on the way' that you wrote about was originally a joking reference to the famous Star Wars phrase in our post about the production of Lancets, which was followed by a statement. We were very amused by this situation, but next time before rewriting, please read the publication to the end," the Russian Telegram channel Military Informant wrote.

The ZALA Lancet UAV is a Russian barrage munition developed by the Zala Aero Group that can also be used for reconnaissance missions. It was first presented in June 2019 at the Army-2019 exhibition in Moscow.

The maximum speed of the latest Lancet-3 kamikaze drone is 110 km/h during horizontal flight and 300 km/h during an attack on a target. The drone has a maximum range of 40-50 km, depending on the sub-version, and can stay in the air for almost an hour. The maximum take-off weight is about 12 kg, of which the payload is up to 5 kg. In combat mode, it can be armed with both high-explosive fragmentation and live ammunition.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, on 14 July, Ukrainian anti-aircraft gunners shot down three more drones of the Russian occupation army in Kherson region. The defence forces "confiscated" Lancet attack drones from the enemy.

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