An elite Ukrainian drone unit said on Tuesday that it had used a new anti-howitzer munition to destroy over 170 pieces of Russian artillery within two days.
The Lasar Group, part of the National Guard of Ukraine, said in a statement that the special operation in early June involved over 800 drones deployed along the war’s eastern and southern fronts.
“As a result, 231 enemy artillery pieces were hit, 171 of them destroyed. This is equivalent to roughly 10 to 14 artillery battalions, or about three artillery brigades,” the group wrote.
It published multiple clips of overhead drone footage that appear to show fortified, camouflaged howitzer and gun positions coming under attack.
Several of the clips show quadcopters that appear to act as bombers flying above the gun barrels before the positions are engulfed in explosions.
Business Insider could not independently verify when and where the footage was shot.
The Lasar Group said the missions were planned by its analysts who worked with several other units to sift through large tranches of intelligence collected on the gun locations.
A “special munition” was also created for these strikes, the group said.
“The group’s engineers developed this warhead specifically to destroy howitzers by targeting their gun barrels, making the weapons inoperable,” its statement read.
Ukraine’s defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said on Tuesday that the flurry of drone strikes was part of a multi-phase campaign called Operation Auchan.
The first stage had seen Ukrainian drone units attack 980 Russian targets over three days in 2025, in an effort to force the Kremlin to withdraw its heavy armor from a mechanized offensive that year.
Across both phases, the operation has resulted in 1,180 targets being hit in five days, he said.
Fedorov also highlighted the special payload designed for the second round of drone missions, mentioning a “newly developed munition specifically targeting enemy artillery.”
Neither the Lasar Group nor Fedorov provided more details on the warhead. The National Guard of Ukraine did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
The Ukrainian defense minister said that that 10% to 20% of Ukraine’s battlefield casualties are caused by artillery fire.
Destroying 171 pieces of artillery with drones in two days is significant at the war’s current pace. Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, for example, recorded 417 howitzers and 57 other pieces of artillery struck by 16 of its top units in the entire month of June.
A total of 61 of these weapons were confirmed as destroyed — a claim that Ukrainian troops typically only make after having video footage of the attack verified by analysts.
Founded by television producer Pavlo Yelizarov, the Lasar Group is one of Ukraine’s most prominent drone units and has been credited by the Kyiv officials with destroying $15 billion worth of Russian equipment.
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