Russia Offers War-Tested Drones And Missiles For Export Expert

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) Can Kasapoglu, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said this in an analytical review on the situation in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

"Russia is converting its industrial and operational experience gained in Ukraine – including mass-produced affordable munitions, cruise-missile-drone hybrids, and saturation attacks using mixed strike packages – into an increasingly competitive defense-export portfolio," the expert said.

Russia presented some of its export products at the El Alamein International Airshow 2026, held in Egypt on September 8-10.

"Russia dispatched its combat-tested drones and missiles to Egypt to promote them for export," Kasapoglu said.

One example is the export version of the Banderol cruise-missile-drone hybrid. Russia displayed the Dan-T loitering munition. A derivative of the Banderol missile, the turbojet-powered Dan-T weighs up to 272 kg, has a range of approximately 450 km, and can be launched from fixed-wing drones or rotary-wing manned aircraft – primarily Mi-28 variants. Kronstadt JSC, the manufacturer of the Orion reconnaissance-strike drone, produces Banderol.

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Russia began testing the system in secret in 2024. Its first documented use against Ukraine came in spring 2025, when Ukrainian intelligence reconstructed the hybrid from debris.

According to the expert, Banderol resembles a scaled-down Kh-101, with deployable wings and radar-signature-reducing shaping.

The expert points out that Banderol's architecture combines a Chinese Swiwin turbojet and inertial-navigation system, American, European, and Japanese electronics, and Russia's Kometa-8 controlled radiation pattern antenna. It costs an estimated $50,000-$150,000, compared with roughly $2 million for the Kh-101 and $1.5 million for the Iskander-K. It reaches some 595 km/h per hour, travels 500 km, and carries a 113-kg high-explosive fragmentation warhead

"The Ukrainian military is trying to find interception weapons to counter the Banderol, including products from the Shahed-hunter Wild Hornets drone technology group," Kasapoglu wrote.

The expert also noted that the Russian defense industry sent an export version of the Lancet drone, the Lancet-E, to Egypt. The system has warhead variants weighing approximately 2.7 kg and 4.5 kg. The basic version of the Lancet has an operational range of about 40 km and contains a significant number of Western-made components.

In July, Russia planned to produce 120 Bandеrol missiles per month, but the plant had not yet reached its target production rate. In August, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate reported that Russia was capable of producing up to 80 Bandеrol missiles per month.

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