UKRAINE, KHARKIV, May 27 — Last week, Russians, for the first time since the start of the full-scale war, attacked Kharkiv with an FPV (first-person view) drone “based on an anti-tank grenade launcher,” said mayor Ihor Terekhov, publishing a report on Russian attacks on the city on May 26. 

Terekhov described the weapon as a “new, more insidious threat” that signifies Russian “attempts to find vulnerabilities” in Kharkiv’s defense.  

Today, the governor of the Kharkiv Oblast, Oleh Syniehubov, said in the national telethon that when a small FPV that’s already hard to detect and down carries a more explosive warhead, “it poses a bigger threat for our civilians.”  

“The enemy basically tests new types of (drones — ed.) in Kharkiv Oblast,” Syniehubov said, referring to Russian Molniya-1 and Molniya-2 drones and adding that fiber-optic drones are also massively utilized by Russian troops in the region, especially on Kupiansk axis. 

Kharkiv is Ukraine’s a city that’s about 19 miles from the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine — it often becomes a target of Russian air attacks. Just last week, Russia injured 11 people here, including a child. 

In November 2024, Defense Express wrote about Wild Hornets drone workshop introducing an FPV drone equipped with a grenade launcher—called the Hornet Queen. 

Soldiers from the Bulava unit from Ukrainian Presidential Brigade who used the weapon said that this drone is reusable, unlike kamikaze drones, which makes it a good weapon to destroy already damaged equipment on the battlefield. 

UPD from May 28, 1:01 p.m.: Oleh Syniehubov, not Synuehubiv, is the name of the governor of Kharkiv Oblast.

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