Bagnet: Ukrainian interceptor

Bagnet (Ukrainian “Багнет” – “Bayonet”) is a high-speed autonomous interceptor UAV developed by the Ukrainian company Tenebris. It is designed to destroy enemy drones such as Shahed and Gerbera (united24media.com, ukrinform.net).

Development and deployment

• It was developed in response to the speed increase of Shahed drones from ~200 km/h to up to 250 km/h and their improved maneuverability in the final approach phase (united24media.com, ukrinform.net).
• Development took over a year, manufacturing capacity is increasing, and serial production is ongoing at several Ukrainian companies (ukrinform.net, dev.ua).
• It is already in use in some Ukrainian defense force units and has confirmed successful interceptions of airborne targets (dev.ua).

Technical specifications

According to available data (from various sources):

• Speed:
  • Cruise: ~140 km/h
  • Maximum: ~250 km/h (united24media.com, dev.ua)
• Flight time: ~20 minutes (united24media.com)
• Operating altitude: up to 5 km (dev.ua)
• Range: approximately 15 km according to one source, but another claims up to 40 km (united24media.com, dev.ua)
• Warhead: about 1 kg with an explosive core, designed to minimize the risk from falling debris (dev.ua)
• Navigation: autonomous, based on optical sensors and computer vision; independent from GPS or radio communications (united24media.com, dev.ua)
• Operating modes: fully automatic “fire-and-forget” mode, as well as manual control; the developers plan a fully automated final targeting phase (ukrinform.net, dev.ua)

Additional context

Bagnet represents a new approach to counter-reconnaissance UAVs – instead of expensive surface-to-air missiles, fast and agile drones act as airborne “hunting dogs.” An article on Medium describes it like this: “It’s here to intercept and ram the enemy” (medium.com).

Overview (table)