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Rocket-Boosted and Jet-Powered: Inside Ukraine’s Mysterious Bars Drone-Missile
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![Photo of Vlad Litnarovych]( "Photo of Vlad Litnarovych")
Ukrainian jet-powered strike drone-missile “Bars” is launched using small solid-fuel rocket boosters, according to newly released launch footage published by the Museum of the Russian-Ukrainian War on its Facebook page and reported by Militarnyi on December 24.
The video shows the drone being launched from a ground-based launcher whose exact design has not been disclosed—likely for security reasons to prevent Russian forces from identifying and targeting the system.
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Footage indicates that the solid-fuel booster provides the Bars drone with initial lift and the minimum required speed needed for its jet engine to ignite. The booster itself operates for only a few seconds, but that brief impulse is sufficient to transition the drone into sustained jet-powered flight.
Until recently, almost nothing was publicly known about the appearance or launch method of the Bars drone. Only in December 2025 did photographs displayed at the museum reveal what the drone looks like, underscoring how tightly controlled information about the system has been.
Ukraine’s Armed Forces are reported to be using Bars drones systematically to strike Russian military targets. However, official acknowledgments of their use have emerged only recently, suggesting the drones may have been operational for some time.
In terms of performance, Bars is believed to be broadly comparable to another Ukrainian missile-drone known as Peklo, which has also been used to strike Russian targets. A source described Bars as a medium-range strike system, with an estimated operational range of roughly 700 to 800 kilometers.
While Ukrainian military officials have only recently begun mentioning the Bars drone alongside other strike systems, the available evidence suggests it has been part of Ukraine’s long-range strike toolkit for an extended period—now revealed through a rare glimpse of how it actually gets airborne.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that one of five recently launched Ukrainian Flamingo missiles successfully struck a target inside enemy-controlled territory, while the remaining four were intercepted by Russian air defenses.
-72b63a4e0c8c475ad81fe3eed3f63729.jpeg "Photo of Cyril Barabaltchouk")
