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Ukraine’s Secretive Auchan Drone Operation Hit 1,180 Russian Targets—Here’s Why It Matters
Ukraine’s Auchan drone campaign is not one operation but a two-stage strike playbook: first smashing Russian armor and logistics deep behind the front, then returning as Art.Auchan to hunt artillery so effectively that Russian activity reportedly dropped by up to 81% in a single day.
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Ukraine’s Defense Forces carried out a coordinated drone operation called Art.Auchan in June 2026, targeting Russian artillery across several key front-line directions and sharply reducing enemy activity, according to the Ukrainian military.
The operation was a new stage of a broader strike campaign, separate from the earlier special operation Ashan, which began in May 2025.
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In June 2026, Ukraine launched the next stage of the campaign—Art.Auchan—focused specifically on Russian artillery.
This time, units of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces coordinated strikes against Russian howitzers in the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Starobilsk directions.
As a result, 231 targets were hit, with 171 of them destroyed. The military said the effectiveness of the strikes was confirmed by objective control footage and intercepted Russian communications.
According to Ukraine’s Defense Forces, Russian activity dropped by 30% to 81% across the entire affected sector within the first day of the operation.
In total, the broader Auchan special operation has hit 1,180 targets.
“Each target hit means less fire on Ukrainian positions and cities,” the military said. “Each such operation weakens the enemy and brings closer the moment when it loses the ability to impose its terms on the battlefield.”
During the original Ashan operation, Ukraine’s Defense Forces, with the involvement of the Lazar and Nemesis units, carried out some of their hardest strikes against Russian forces in temporarily occupied territories. The campaign targeted equipment, resources, and logistics far behind the front line.
According to the military, that operation hit and destroyed 949 targets located more than 50 kilometers from the line of contact. The coordinated effort significantly weakened Russia’s offensive potential, forcing Moscow to spend months restoring its losses.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov previously said that Auchan was a large-scale drone-only operation that destroyed nearly 800 pieces of Russian armored equipment in just three nights.
“Last year, we called it ‘Auchan.’ In three nights, almost 800 units of Russian armored equipment were destroyed,” Fedorov said.
He stressed that it was not an offensive operation but a mass drone strike against Russian equipment. According to Fedorov, Ukraine used nearly 1,000 drones over three days after stockpiling them in advance and preparing intelligence on the targets.
“The mechanized assault that the Russians planned to carry out back in May, they were only able to conduct in October. In other words, for almost half a year they effectively did not have such capabilities,” Fedorov said.
Previously, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy officially approved a 40-day strategic influence operation by the Security Service of Ukraine designed to pressure Russia into concluding its war.
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