Peklo missile drone: Ukroboronprom hands over first batch to the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The long-range war between Russia and Ukraine is approaching its next stage of escalation. On Friday – Armed Forces Day in Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelensky handed over the first batch of the new Peklo missile drone (Пекло, hell) to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The weapon was developed by the Ukrainian defence group Ukroboronprom. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, attended the handover.

Also present were Herman Smetanin, Minister for Strategic Industries, his deputy Anna Gvozdyar and Oleksandr Kamyshin, who advises the president on strategic matters.

According to Smetanin, the Ukrainian manufacturer developed the missile drone from scratch in record time – within a single year. “The product is already being used successfully in combat,” the minister said.

Дрон-ракета «Пекло». Наша, українська зброя, яка вже має підтверджене бойове застосування. Сьогодні передали першу партію нашим Силам оборони. Тепер завдання – нарощувати виробництво та застосування.
Дякую кожному й кожній, хто залучений до нашого оборонного виробництва, чий… pic.twitter.com/G2EWHQyVmZ— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) December 6, 2024

Peklo missile drone: what is known about range and speed

Little has been released about the weapon: it is said to fly around 700 kilometres at a speed of around 700 km/h. That this implicitly signals the missile could reach Moscow from Ukraine within an hour is unlikely to be a coincidence.

The area around Volgograd, however, also lies within this range. It was from there that the RS-26 Rubezh intermediate-range missile was fired at Dnipro on 21 November. Also within reach would be Engels military airfield near Saratov, from which long-range bombers have repeatedly taken off towards Ukraine. Added to these are airfields and other military targets in a wide arc that begins in the north at Soltsy in Novgorod Oblast and extends to Khanskaya in the Caucasus.

For security reasons, further technical characteristics of the stand-off weapon remain classified. What is clear is that series production is already under way. According to the statements, the weapon is also considerably cheaper than comparable Russian systems.

Engine above the fuselage, simple construction

Visually, the jet-powered missile, around two metres long, is strongly reminiscent of the Houthis' Quds cruise missiles. A striking feature is the Microturbo engine, which sits freestanding above the fuselage at the tail.

Such propulsion is increasingly common in low-cost stand-off weapons: compared with a piston engine, it needs fewer moving parts, and compared with a solid-fuel motor, it allows a much greater range. At subsonic speeds, the externally mounted engine – as on airliners – has no drawbacks. It does, however, allow a simpler fuselage design with more internal volume, for example for fuel.

In addition, the engine sits optimally in the airflow at any speed. If it were installed inside the fuselage and fed via air ducts, extensive wind tunnel testing would be required.

Other features of the cruise missile include wings with a span of around one and a half metres and a strikingly small V-tail.

It remains unclear how the drone is launched. A solid-fuel booster, often used for weapons of this category, does not fit the rounded tail. One possibility would be a small take-off trolley that rolls out on the runway as soon as the cruise missile lifts off.

Clearly visible rivets and gaps between components show what mattered in manufacturing: simple and cheap mass production evidently took priority over high precision, lower drag and a smaller radar cross-section.

Ukraine plans to produce 3,000 cruise missiles in 2025. Volodymyr Zelensky announced this at the end of November in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament.