The big news here is that Molniya-2 is being used to strike vehicles. Aren’t Molniyas dirt cheap, around a thousand dollars? Yes, it isn’t as agile as a typical quadcopter drone, but the thing is that Molniyas have a range of 40km
The Molinya is difficult to control, with a very basic airframe that looks like a school project, and a front heavy layout because you attach either a TM-62 antitank mine or a Bumblebee thermobaric grenade there. The Bumblebee alone looks as big as a thermos bottle, while the TM-62 mine alone has an explosive filler weight of around 7-8 kilograms, which is about as high as a 152mm HE OF45 or 155mm M107 artillery shell. To compare, a "carrot", an FPV drone with an RPG, one of the most common FPV drone configurations, only has a explosive filler weight of only about 1.4 to 1.9kg depending on the RPG munition. The controllability of the Molinya isn't helped by interference from opposing EW which so often Ukrainian militarized pickups carry. For this, the Molinya is mostly used on static targets. It's literally, winged artillery.
But, if you put a fiberoptic cable on it, the controllability of the Molinya will be much greatly improved with the much higher data transfer rates. This will make it much easier to accurately attack moving vehicles. The Russians have already recently confirmed the testing of the Molinya with fiberoptic so I am wondering if we are seeing one of the first instance of a Molinya using a fiberoptic in combat. But of course, there can also be some very skilled FPV operators over there, who could still pull off such an attack wirelessly.
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