Ukraine Upgrades Blyskavka-2 Strike Drone With Longer Flight Time and Terminal Guidance

Ukrainian defense company Blyskavka has developed an upgraded version of its Blyskavka-2 fixed-wing suicide drone, adding longer endurance, new propulsion components, and a terminal-guidance system designed to simplify attacks on identified targets.

The company’s founder detailed the new version in an interview with Militarnyi published on July 21.

Thanks to a redesigned aerodynamic fairing, the Blyskavka-2 can now remain airborne for up to 45 minutes. The drone has also received new motors, batteries, firmware, and other upgraded components.

The aircraft is currently supplied without a standardized warhead or dedicated communications relay, however—two gaps the company now wants to close, Militarnyi noted.

Blyskavka plans to supply future drones with a company-developed warhead and detonator. The move is intended to prevent compatibility problems caused by improvised explosives assembled separately by individual units.

The company is therefore developing different warhead configurations for specific battlefield missions.

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Blyskavka has also completed work on its own relay carrier and equipped the first drones with the Norda-8 terminal-guidance system.

The upgraded configuration allows an operator to launch the drone using a ground-mounted mast, identify a target, select it on the interface, and allow the aircraft to continue toward it.

“We already made the Blyskavka with Norda-8, and it works extremely well,” the founder said. “We made a mast: we fly, see the target, tap it, and it goes. You do not even need to launch a relay carrier.”

A relay is typically used to extend communications range by raising the signal above obstacles and overcoming the radio-horizon effect. A mast-based system could reduce the need to keep a separate relay drone in the air, simplifying deployment and freeing another aircraft for different missions.

Previously, Ukraine has publicly showcased a new reusable version of its domestically developed An-196 Liutyi long-range drone equipped with four compact air-launched cruise missiles, marking a potential evolution of a platform previously known as a one-way strike drone.

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