Operation ArtAuchan artillery strikes destroyed at least 171 confirmed Russian artillery pieces across two nights in June 2026, Ukraine’s Lasar Group announced on Tuesday, deploying a newly engineered munition designed to disable howitzers by destroying their barrels from within.
The Lasar Group, part of the National Guard of Ukraine, said 231 enemy artillery pieces were hit in total during the operation, with 171 confirmed destroyed. ‘As a result, 231 enemy artillery pieces were hit, 171 of them destroyed. This is equivalent to roughly 10 to 14 artillery battalions, or about three artillery brigades,’ the group stated.
Over 800 drones were deployed along the eastern and southern fronts, according to both the Lasar Group and Ukrayinska Pravda, which specifies the strikes took place over two nights rather than two days as some accounts described.
Operation ArtAuchan artillery strikes: how the mission was planned
The Lasar Group said its analysts coordinated with several other units to process large volumes of intelligence on gun locations before the strikes. A specialist warhead was then developed in-house for the mission.
‘The group’s engineers developed this warhead specifically to destroy howitzers by targeting their gun barrels, making the weapons inoperable,’ the group’s statement read. UNITED24 Media reports the munition was designed to destroy artillery barrels from within, rather than solely by striking the exterior.
Ukraine’s Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov framed the strikes as the second phase of a broader campaign called Operation Auchan. In a June 17 interview with PRESSING cited by UNITED24 Media, Fedorov put the destruction figure higher, at 250 Russian artillery systems across the two nights. The Lasar Group’s figure of 171 destroyed reflects video-confirmed assessments; Ukrainian units typically only count a weapon as destroyed after drone footage is verified by analysts.
Kyiv Post reports that the second phase was specifically codenamed ArtAuchan, shifting the operation’s focus squarely onto Russian artillery after the first phase had targeted armour.
A two-phase campaign that has now hit 1,180 targets
The first phase of Operation Auchan saw Ukrainian drone units strike 980 Russian targets over three days in 2025, aiming to force the Kremlin to pull heavy armour back from a mechanised offensive. Kyiv Post reports that the first phase disrupted that offensive, halting its momentum for up to six months through coordinated drone strikes and intelligence-driven planning.
Across both phases, Fedorov said the operation has resulted in 1,180 targets hit over five days in total.
The scale of ArtAuchan comes into sharper focus against broader monthly data. Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces recorded 417 howitzers and 57 other artillery pieces struck by 16 of its top units across the whole of June, with 61 of those weapons confirmed destroyed. The Lasar Group’s two-night tally alone accounts for a substantial share of that monthly confirmed-destruction figure.
Fedorov has said that 10% to 20% of Ukraine’s battlefield casualties are caused by artillery fire, which explains the focus on suppressing Russian gun positions at scale.
UNITED24 Media reports that Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces destroyed 50,147 Russian targets in June 2026 overall, striking a target every 52 seconds and eliminating 9,866 personnel across the month.
The Lasar Group was founded by television producer Pavlo Yelizarov and is credited by Kyiv officials with destroying $15 billion worth of Russian equipment. Neither the group nor Fedorov provided technical specifications of the new warhead. The National Guard of Ukraine did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
Whether the ArtAuchan munition is now in wider production across other Ukrainian drone units is the question that will determine whether the two-night tally becomes a repeatable capability or a one-off feat.