Lancet

The Lancet is Russia's primary precision loitering munition, developed by ZALA Aero Group (part of Kalashnikov Concern) and first deployed in Ukraine in mid-2022. It carries electro-optical guidance and a shaped-charge warhead, achieving a reported 77.7% hit rate against Ukrainian artillery, armour, and air-defence systems. A CSIS analysis published on 17 April 2026 placed its unit cost at $50,000 — roughly 167 times the cost of the new Russian Molniya-2 loitering munition, exposing a deliberate cost-tiering strategy within Russia's drone arsenal.

The Lancet comes in two variants: the Lancet-1 (light, ~3 kg warhead) and the Lancet-3 (heavier, up to 5 kg warhead), with a maximum range of 40 km and flight endurance of up to one hour in upgraded versions. Target acquisition uses a TV guidance unit controlled in the terminal phase, with Russia now integrating autonomous targeting modules based on Nvidia Jetson chips — the same component family found in the V2U UAS. Ukraine has responded with "cope cage" mesh screens around artillery to disrupt the terminal-phase lock.

The Lancet has reshaped Ukrainian force protection doctrine. Its systematic destruction of self-propelled howitzers, including NATO-supplied models, prompted a broad reappraisal of platform survivability at the front. The CSIS report framing it alongside the V2U drone illustrates a broader Russian intent: a tiered autonomous-strike ecosystem ranging from $300 expendables to $50,000 precision hunters, all running predominantly on US-sourced memory and processor components despite sanctions.