Design and capabilities
The AN-196 Liutyi — Ukrainian for "fierce" or "furious" — is a fixed-wing, long-range one-way attack drone developed by Antonov in partnership with state defence conglomerate Ukroboronprom, announced in October 2022 as a direct answer to Russia's Shahed-136/Geran-2 campaign. It is substantially larger than its Russian counterpart: early units weighed 250 to 300 kilograms with a 6.7-metre wingspan and 4.4-metre length, powered by a gasoline engine driving a three-blade rear propeller, with a distinctive V-tail for stability. Reported range has grown over successive upgrades from roughly 1,000 kilometres at introduction to a currently claimed 2,000 kilometres, alongside a warhead that increased from 50 to 75 kilograms in a November 2024 upgrade. Guidance combines satellite navigation and inertial systems; some reporting has attributed a Western-built flight-control and machine-vision system to the platform, said to allow continued autonomous operation when GPS signal is degraded, but that specific claim rests on a single commercial source that could not be independently corroborated for this entry and should be verified before publication.
Operational history
Liutyi entered operational units by late 2023 and has since become, according to independent outlet Re:Russia, responsible for up to 80 percent of Ukraine's successful deep strikes on Russian territory during 2024. Documented strikes include the Ryazan oil refinery (March 2024), the Mozdok air base in North Ossetia roughly 720 kilometres inside Russia (June 2024), the Saratov refinery at over 600 kilometres range (November 2024, repeated October 2025), the VNIIR-Progress components plant in Cheboksary at roughly 975 kilometres (July 2025, repeated May 2026 alongside a Flamingo missile), and the Lukoil refinery at Ukhta, roughly 1,700 kilometres inside Russia (February 2026) — among the furthest confirmed Ukrainian strikes of the war. These dates and distances are drawn from Ukrainian and Western press reporting rather than official Ukrainian confirmation of every strike.
AirVeto context
Liutyi has not been confirmed in any EU border-airspace incident, and its strike profile — deep into Russian territory, away from the EU's eastern border — makes that unsurprising. Its relevance to this glossary is indirect but genuine: it is the airframe repeatedly, and in the Kouvola case mistakenly, identified as the source of drones crashing in Baltic states before wreckage analysis corrected the identification to the smaller Chaika. Readers following any future Baltic incident involving an initial "AN-196" identification should treat that as provisional pending size and wing-geometry confirmation, per the pattern documented under the Chaika entry.