Ukraine’s new drones revive M142 Himars-style strikes on Russian rear areas
Ukraine's newer winged attack drones are restoring m142 himars-style strike effects against Russian rear areas, according to footage reviewed from mid-2025. Spring, a drone pilot with the Ukrainian National Guard's Typhoon unit, flew the strike that reached a deserted village in Zaporizhzhia from three thousand feet above the fields.
The drone hit the roofline of the largest of three houses in the settlement. Spring said, “This was a house where Russian FPV drone pilots lived.”
Spring’s mid-2025 strike
Business Insider reviewed the footage of the mid-range strike from mid-2025. Spring said it was her first successful strike, and the target was the house where Russian FPV drone pilots lived. The sequence showed a recon drone watching the area while the winged drone came in on the settlement in Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine's newer winged drone type now enables consistent strikes on Russia's rear areas, a capability that Western artillery and munitions such as the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System previously provided. Early in the war, Ukraine's deep-strike ability depended heavily on Western-made weapons, including British-French Storm Shadow missiles and roughly 40 US-made HIMARS launchers.
HIMARS after the first year
The HIMARS launchers could fire rockets up to 150 kilometers and longer-range missiles up to 300 kilometers. Those mid-range strikes were key to undermining Russia's attack style early in the war, but Russia was able to curb the threat from HIMARS after the first year of the war.
George Barros, director of Innovation and Open Source Tradecraft at the Institute for the Study of War, said, “We argue that the Ukrainian mid-range strike is actually heralding a new phase of the war.” He also said, “What we're looking at here is a really solid foundation for Ukraine to blunt Russian advances.”
30 to 300 km drones
The newer drones can travel roughly 30 to 300 km, carry heavier explosive payloads, and are built to devastate command posts, supply trucks, and air defense assets. Some of the drones use artificial intelligence systems to overcome Russian jamming by autonomously locking onto their target if they lose the pilot's signal.
Gil Barndollar, a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities, said, “In some sectors of the front, they appear to be having a meaningful impact on Russian logistics, which steadily affects front-line forces and makes even the piecemeal Russian infiltration tactics less viable,”
Use of the drones has risen in the last two months, and Russia has been losing more ground than it has gained in that same period. Barros said, “We're actually quite bullish on the prospects for Ukraine having some substantial upper-hand momentum as we go into the summer,” even as the drone campaign now depends less on the foreign targeting support that once gave donor governments influence over attack choices.
The next shift will come from whether Ukraine can keep the higher drone tempo and sustain strikes deep enough to pressure Russian logistics without relying on the same Western systems that once carried that mission.
