Ukraine presents new long-range rocket drone

Ukraine has a new rocket-powered drone called Peklo, the Ukrainian for Hell, which it introduced to the world on Friday, its Armed Forces Day.

"It is very important that our defenders receive such a modern weapon of Ukrainian manufacture," President Volodymyr Zelenksy said in a statement.

The next task, he said, is to increase production and deploy the weapon. With a range of up to 700 kilometres, it is designed to fly at a speed of 700 kilometres per hour.

Minister for Strategic Industrial Sectors Herman Smetanin posted on Telegram that the first dozen of the weapons had already been handed over to the army.

He explained that it had taken one year to develop, and that its accuracy and resilience to electronic countermeasures are constantly being improved. "We are building the arsenal of the free world together," Smetanin wrote.

With the stated range, the weapon could be used against targets deep in the Russian hinterland including the capital, Moscow, and beyond. The Kremlin is around 450 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.

In August, Zelensky presented a missile drone called Palyanytsia for Independence Day. According to media reports, this also has a range of several hundred kilometres with a warhead of more than 100 kilograms.

Palyanytsia is a type of bread, but the pronunciation of the word is a shibboleth that can identify a native Ukrainian speaker, which has been used during the war to pick out Russian soldiers and saboteurs.

Defence Minister Rustem Umerov wrote on Wednesday that it has already gone into serial production.