French-made howitzer destroyed by kamikaze drone – Russian MOD (VIDEO)
The Russian military has destroyed a French-made Caesar self-propelled artillery system in Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
The artillery piece was discovered at its firing position in an unspecified location in Ukraine’s Sumy Region, according to the Russian military. Thermal drone footage released by the Defense Ministry shows the howitzer firing a shot while parked on a dirt road by a wooded area.
The howitzer rears into the shrubbery immediately after firing, yet ends up hit by a Lancet-family drone. The artillery piece appeared to sustain a direct hit and was destroyed with a powerful explosion observed at the site.
Over the past few weeks, multiple French-made Caesar howitzers, as well as other similar mobile artillery systems, have been destroyed by the Russian military in Sumy Region. Kiev has deployed the systems into the area to provide fire support to its forces operating in the adjacent Russian Kursk Region, invaded by Ukraine in early August.
The Russian military’s concentrated effort to hunt for the systems has seen it deploy surveillance drones to find the artillery, using various means to destroy it, including medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) strike drones, ballistic missiles and the Lancet loitering munitions.
The latter family of drones has become one of the key medium-range tools in the Russian arsenal amid the conflict, with the Lancets repeatedly used to take out Ukrainian high-value assets, such as mobile and towed artillery, anti-aircraft, radar and other systems.
