One year into the Ukraine-Russia, the U.S. Gives Kyiv Air-launched Drone Attack Capability

The U.S. announced February 24, 2023 a $2 billion military aid to Ukraine in which are drones such as the Altius 600 and JUMP 20 that provide attack capability from the air.

The Altius 600 can be tube-launched from an aircraft or helicopter as a loitering munition while the JUMP 20 UAV can launch a Switchblade Kamikaze drone from a distance.

Attack from the air is a capability that Ukraine has been crying out for since the start of the war.

According to its manufacturer, U.S. based, Aera I, the Altius 600 offers "a variety of sensor and payload packages to support ISR&T, SIGNINT, EW and Communications Relay use cases. For kinetic strikes, ALTIUS-M offers multiple seeker and warhead options to meet the tactical mission."

The Altius 600 is integrated with Black Hawk helicopters to be launched via a tube mounted on the side of the chopper.

The Altius 600 has a range of 440 km and endurance of 4 plus hours allowing enough time for it to hunt and kill it targets.

Built by AeroVironment, he JUMP 20 is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), fixed-wing UAV. It can provide multi-sensor ISR services. In November 2021 AeroVironment announced the successful demonstration of integrating Switchblade 300 loitering missiles with the JUMP 20 UAV.

Delivering 14+ hours of endurance and an operational range of 185 km the JUMP 20 with a Switchblade attack drone mounted can stay at a safe distance and be rushed to the scene of battle within minutes.