Ukrainian Strike Drone Costs: Rob Lee Prices Dart to FP-2

A Ukrainian middle strike drone costs from about $2,000 to around $50,000, depending on payload, by the figures of Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Blyskavka and Dart are probably about $2,000, a Hornet $3,500 bare or about $5,000 with Starlink, and Fire Point's FP-2, carrying 250 to 400 pounds, around $50,000, he thinks.

Russia's Molniya is cheaper still. Lee put it at $500 basic, and Dmytro Putiata, a veteran sergeant of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, corrected him to approximately $1,500. Here is every price the two gave, with who said it:

• Blyskavka and Dart (Ukraine, light): probably about $2,000 (Lee).
• 15-inch FPV with Starlink (Ukraine): around $2,000, reaching up to 50 kilometres (Putiata).
• Hornet (Ukraine, light): $3,500 without extras, about $5,000 with Starlink and other things, he thinks (Lee).
• Hornet with a Radionor radio link (Ukraine, last year): the radio comms added like $20,000, he thinks, about five times the cost of the drone without it (Lee).
• Bulava and RAM 2X (Ukraine, loitering munitions): about $40,000, flying up to approximately 100 kilometres without Starlink through a Shark fixed-wing repeater (Putiata).
• FP-2 from Fire Point (Ukraine, heavy): around $50,000, he thinks, with a 250 to 400 pound payload (Lee).
• Molniya (Russia): $500 basic by Lee's figure, approximately $1,500 by Putiata's, with an operational depth of up to about 40 kilometres (Putiata).
• Molniya with Starlink (Russia, January): about maybe $2,500 all together (Lee).
• Lancet (Russia): $25,000 to $40,000 depending on the version, he thinks (Lee).
• A Starlink terminal: $300 to $400 (Lee).

Why does payload, not range, set the price?

Lee divides middle strike into heavy and light, and the split is about what the drone carries.

Heavy for Ukraine means the FP-2, with a payload of 250 to 400 pounds: something significant, enough to destroy bridges and buildings. An FP-2 can put holes in a bridge, Lee says, and enough of them can destroy a building. A Hornet cannot do either.

Light means the Hornet, Blyskavka and Dart class, carrying maybe ten pounds, typically less, about five kilograms. That is good enough for a truck, Lee says, but it is not going to penetrate a fortified target.

The combination is the point. The FP-2 is a poor option for trucks: it is too expensive, and hunting vehicles takes far greater quantities. Hornets are cheap enough to send along roads looking for Russian Kamaz trucks and fuel trucks, and to keep hitting them. A commander chooses a $2,000 answer or a $50,000 answer depending on what is being hit.

Hear Lee price the FP-2 and Putiata correct the Molniya from 1:05:06.

How far does a cheap strike drone really reach?

The Molniya correction matters less for the price than for what Putiata said next. Lee had described the Molniya as a very cheap fixed-wing FPV, like the Dart, with about a 100 kilometre range. Putiata's figure is what it does in practice: Russia places its Molniya crews approximately 20 kilometres back from the line, so the operational depth is up to about 40 kilometres. More is possible in some cases. In most cases, he said, it is not more than that.

That is the difference between a specification and an operational fact. The airframe's range is one number. The range left once you account for where the crew can survive is another, and it is the second one that shapes the map.

Putiata gave the Ukrainian equivalents the same way. A 15-inch FPV with Starlink costs around $2,000 and reaches up to 50 kilometres. The Bulava and RAM 2X are quite expensive at about $40,000, but they can fly up to approximately 100 kilometres without Starlink, because a Shark fixed-wing reconnaissance drone acts as a repeater. So the same mission can be bought at $2,000 or $40,000, and much of what the extra money buys is independence from a satellite link.

What does the radio link add to the cost?

This is the line in the price list that explains the rest. Before Starlink, Lee says, operating a drone at a distance meant a radio connection such as Radionor: very expensive, and very jammable. A Hornet's base cost was about $3,500, and for the Radionor version used last year he thinks the radio comms added like $20,000, about five times the cost of the drone without it. That meant fewer drones and a different way of using them.

A Starlink terminal, by Lee's figure, is $300 to $400. It immediately fixed those problems, which is why he calls Starlink a bit of a crutch for Ukraine: cheap, and it fixes a lot of issues.

Russia learned what that dependence costs. It had fitted Starlink to the Molniya, the BM-35 and BM-70, Shaheds and ground robots, and when it lost access, Ukrainian units saw very few Russian UGVs for a while. What the cutoff did to Russia's cheap truck hunting, and how its jammers now try to take the same link from Ukraine, is in Russia, Starlink and the jammers.

Why build cheap drones at all?

Putiata's answer is the number of targets. When two real armies with a lot of armour, trucks and buildings fight each other, the number of targets is tremendous. In his opinion, cheaper versions were made not just because they are cheaper, but because most of those targets do not require a loitering munition. A Lancet is worth spending on an M777, a self-propelled gun or a radar. It is not the tool for a pickup truck.

Lee adds the other pressure. Both sides now run interceptor teams, and if you send expensive reconnaissance past the front line, it will likely be taken down at some point. That pushes both armies toward cheaper reconnaissance and cheaper strike drones. The Bulava and RAM 2X are still used, Lee says, but it is good to have a cheaper option, and when a Hornet costs around $5,000, the quantities can be quite significant.

Why so many of those cheap drones get through is the subject of Russia's missing layered defence against cheap strike drones.