Ukrainian Engineers Turn Light Aircraft Into UAV Capable Of Reaching Moscow

The Russian air defense has no answer to it.

Ukrainian engineers have turned the light two-seater aircraft A-22 Flying Fox (Foxbat) into an attack drone that can fly to the capital of the aggressor country Russia — Moscow.

This was reported by the German publication Bild, citing its own sources.

According to their information, the commercial ultra-light aircraft A-22 has been turned into a long-range UAV — up to 1.2 thousand km.

“Such a flight range is far beyond the capabilities of the German Taurus cruise missile. In addition, this is the largest of the known Ukrainian kamikaze UAVs: it can carry 200 kilograms of explosives,” the publication writes.

As Bild found out, since 1996, the Ukrainian company Aeroprakt has produced more than a thousand copies of this model.

“The Ukrainian military decided to convert them into weapons in early 2024. The most important thing: manual control has been replaced by a satellite navigation system,” the publication writes.

There is information that in April 2024, the Ukrainian Armed Forces successfully used such a drone to attack a Russian UAV plant in Tatarstan, and in December — to blow up the headquarters of special forces in Grozny, BILD claims.

As the publication writes, the converted aircraft can achieve this thanks to a small engine, practically invisible to Russian air defense systems, whose radars are configured to track heat emission.

“If the engine of the Storm Shadow missile heats up to 870 degrees, then the A-22 engine — up to 100 degrees. A special film provides radar protection for the A-22. In addition, it flies at low speed and at low altitude. The Russian air defense has no answer yet,” Bild said.

According to the publication's expert on open data analysis, Julian Röpke, the disadvantage of such a device is the modest number of finished units. According to available data, the company Aeroprakt could produce around 50 A-22 per year. And it is unlikely that this volume will be significantly increased, the expert claims.

“For comparison, the Russian military sometimes launches more than 50 Geran-2 kamikaze drones in one night,” Bild concluded.

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