WATCH Russian drone destroy Ukrainian military boat

A Russian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has successfully destroyed a Ukrainian military motorboat, according to a video that has been published on social media.

The 16-second clip starts with the drone locking onto its target, a quick-moving Ukrainian river vessel. The video's caption identifies the UAV as a Russian Lancet.

First-person-view footage then shows the UAV approaching the boat. The video continues with footage apparently taken by another drone, which shows the first smashing into the vessel and setting it on fire; the burning motorboat is then seen beaching. It is unclear where and when exactly the attack took place.

The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented on the video yet. The latest military report detailing the developments on the frontlines over the past 24 hours does not mention any boats among the Ukrainian equipment being destroyed by the Russian military.

The Lancet family of kamikaze drones, which are also known as loitering munitions, have frequently been mentioned in the context of successful Russian strikes; notably, they have been used to destroy several US-made Abrams tanks.

Earlier in June, one such exploding UAV destroyed a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 that had been caught in the open at an airfield. The Russian loitering munition has a distinctive shape due to its two sets of X-wings and comes in two principal versions, with payloads weighing one and three kilograms, respectively.

Back in November 2023, the head of the Russian arms export agency Rosoboronexport, Aleksandr Mikheev, claimed that foreign buyers were showing a great deal of interest in the Lancets. At the time, Mikheev stressed that the drones were not being sold abroad at the moment because “the Russian armed forces have a high demand for it and there is no export permission for it yet.”