Russia’s top gun manufacturer, Kalashnikov, is making a small kamikaze drone described as a flying grenade, Defense News reported Monday.
The KUB is described in a news release as a “high-precision unmanned attack complex...designed for defeating remote ground targets,” the news outlet reported.
But Russian media reports say KUB is a suicide drone that detonates itself when in range of the target.
Kalashnikov says the drone — with a payload of nearly seven pounds and a flight time of 30 minutes at around 50 to 80 miles per hour — is silent, and covertly launched, Defense News reported.
Kalashnikov is a subsidiary of Rostec — a massive defense and high-technology holding company. Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov was quoted in a statement Sunday saying KUB delivers a warhead to the target “whether the target is concealed or not, both at low and high altitudes.”
“It is [an] extremely accurate and efficient weapon,” he said, and it’s “very hard to combat by traditional air defense systems,” Defense News reported.
The news outlet said Kalashnikov didn’t respond to a request for elaboration.
Though Russia still lags behind the United States for large strike drones, Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi is reportedly working on a heavy stealth strike drone known as Okhotnik (Hunter) and expects to unveil it in the spring.