Russians Set Ambushes for Ukrainian Drones Using MON-100 and MON-90 Mines

21 October, 2024 Illustrative photo of a Russian with MON-90. Photo from open sources Russians are trying to counter Ukrainian heavy multicopter bombers with MON-100 and MON-90 anti-personnel mines.

The corresponding video was published by the telegram channel "OnlyBang - News in Engineering". The footage shows how the Russians are installing two powerful anti-personnel fragmentation mines with remote initiation capability--MON-100 and MON-90--on an abandoned decoy vehicle. The concept of this ambush is that the decoy vehicle might be spotted by a drone, prompting the operator to target and destroy it.

At this point, the decoy and the airspace above it are monitored, and when the bomber drone hovers over the target to drop the munition, the mine is detonated. The MON-90 mine, which, according to the footage, is mounted on the roof of the car, is equipped with 2,000 elements that hit targets at a distance of 90 meters.

In the video, the MON-100 was placed near the decoy car, but it is possible that it could have been installed on the car itself. The mine contains 400 fragmentation elements, which disperse over a range of 115 meters. In general, once detonated, these mines create a large "cloud" of debris that can damage or shoot down a bomber drone as it descends and hovers in place to engage the target.

Photo from open sources

The effectiveness of this ambush remains unknown. Moreover, the Russians have not shown the "downed" Ukrainian drone. Heavy bomber drones are one of the most effective weapons in the arsenal of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

Recently, Militarnyi reported that operators of the Unmanned Systems Forces destroyed a launcher of the latest Russian Buk-M3 anti-aircraft missile system using such a drone.

The machine was hit by a multirotor bomber drone with a free-falling munition that hit one of the missiles on the launcher and caused the munition to detonate.

The normal range of the bomber drones is 20 kilometers, and the SAM was hit at a distance of 60 kilometers.