DART
DART is a Ukrainian balloon-launched strike missile: dropped from a stratospheric aerostat at 12-18 km, it shuts off its own navigation at ~6 km and finishes on a fixed solid-fuel course, leaving Russian jamming nothing to attack. Its graphite warhead is built to short out power grids.
Ukraine's DART is a balloon-launched strike missile from the Center of Innovative Technologies Program, dropped from stratospheric aerostats at 12-18 km and built to defeat Russian electronic warfare by shutting off its own navigation for a fixed-course, solid-fuel terminal run.
Overview
DART is a small guided missile designed by the Ukrainian company Center of Innovative Technologies Program to be released from stratospheric balloons rather than fired from an aircraft or ground launcher. Militarnyi, which first reported the system on June 16, 2026, describes a 1.84-meter, 13-kilogram weapon that drops from an aerostat at 12-18 km altitude, flies on satellite navigation during its descent, then deliberately shuts that navigation down at roughly 6 km, lights a solid-fuel motor and runs a fixed course to the target. The design logic, as Defense News put it, is that once the navigation shuts off, Russian jammers cannot pull the missile off target — there is no signal left to attack.
The system matters for two reasons. First, it is a deliberate design answer to Russia's densest battlefield advantage, electronic warfare, achieved not by hardening a receiver but by removing it from the terminal phase entirely. Second, it rides an already-operational Ukrainian balloon campaign: Euromaidan Press reported in May 2026 that Ukraine had floated more than 1,000 balloons into Russia on the prevailing west-to-east winds for reconnaissance, decoy and strike missions. DART has not yet passed Ukrainian Ministry of Defense codification and has no documented combat use. It should not be confused with other DART-named systems — Leonardo's DART guided 76mm ammunition, Ukraine's Steel Hornets "Darts" FPV munition, or NATO's Steadfast Dart exercise are unrelated.
Development
The developer, the Center of Innovative Technologies Program, publicly revealed DART in mid-June 2026, with Militarnyi carrying the first detailed report on June 16; SOFX and the National Security Journal state the weapon was first presented at the Eurosatory defense exhibition outside Paris that same week. The company builds the missile but not the carrier: "Aerostats are not our development, but a partner's," the developers told Ukrainian media, as relayed by United24 Media; the partner has not been named.
DART emerged from, rather than created, Ukraine's wind-borne strike ecosystem. Untethered aerostats have participated in deep-rear strikes on Russian refineries, railways and other infrastructure since 2024, according to Euromaidan Press, and balloons have drifted as far as Moscow, where air defenses tracked them at about 6 miles altitude during a September 2025 strike, per Defense News. The developers say DART will undergo Ministry of Defense codification "in the near future," which RBC-Ukraine notes would open the way to state orders.
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