Armed Forces of Ukraine shoot down Russian Merlin-VR drone

The Ukrainian servicemen have shot down Russia’s newest Merlin-VR surveillance drone.

The relevant statement was made by the Ukrainian Air Force.

Photos of the downed UAV were released by Pavlo Kashchuk.

This drone was first unveiled in September 2021, and has not been officially adopted yet.

The Merlin-VR is equipped with a hybrid power generator, which was supposed to ensure low acoustic visibility.

Not much is known about the tactical and technical characteristics of the drone. It can stay in the air for up to ten hours and reach an altitude of up to 5 km. The drone can carry up to 6.5 kg of payload. That means the UAV may have a powerful optoelectronic module.

The unmanned aircraft was developed by the Smolensk Research Institute of Modern Telecommunication Technologies.

This is not the first time that the Ukrainian servicemen have downed a rare Russian drone.

In the Mykolaiv Region, the Armed Forces shot down a classified Russian drone, which has no official name. The Russian military tried to conduct air reconnaissance with this UAV trying to disrupt counter-offensive attacks of Ukrainian forces.

The UAV is equipped with a 12-lense camera for panoramic aerial and video footage. It can transfer the collected data to control posts in real time.