Over the past three months, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have deployed more than 10,000 medium-range Hornet strike drones. The operational range of these UAVs is approximately 200 kilometers.
This is reported by Janes, citing an unnamed source in Ukraine's Ministry of Defense. The data is valid as of September 2, 2026.
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The vast majority of Hornet drones are reported to fly to their targets along pre-programmed routes, while a certain proportion are guided directly by operators.
The Hornet drones are manufactured by Perennial Autonomy, an American defense company founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and formerly known as Project Eagle. The same company also manufactures the Merops anti-aircraft drones and the Bumblebee FPV drones, which are also actively used by the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
It is noteworthy that the authors at Janes chose to cite reports from russian propaganda media as evidence in their publication. These reports claim that the Ukrainian military is making extensive use of Hornet drones to strike key russian targets.
From Defense Express we would like to note that the publication provides the first overall estimate of Hornet drone usage by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, although the data covers only the past three months. In other words, it is clear that the Ukrainian Armed Forces could have deployed significantly more than 10,000 Hornet drones during the first eight months of 2026.
Earlier, we reported on the actual cost of the Hornet drone, which has been used to destroy russian fuel trucks, and aircraft.
We also reported that Auterion Airlogix had begun manufacturing 5,000 Seth-X and Anubis drones intended for use in strikes against russian forces.
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