Like Google’s Project Loon, but for missiles: Ukraine uses stratospheric balloons to increase strike range

• kyiv has launched more than 1,000 cheap balloons into Russia as decoys, relays and now even launch platforms, with a balloon-dropped Hornet drone reportedly doubling its attack range to around 300 km.
• The DART missile falls from the balloons at a distance of 12-18 km and deliberately kills its own navigation in the terminal phase, leaving Russian jammers with no opportunity to attack.
• The prevailing winds from west to east give Ukraine a virtual monopoly on this tactic, even as Russia tests its Barrazh-1 relay balloon as an alternative to Starlink.

Google may have abandoned its Project Loon, a goal to use stratospheric balloons as flying cell towers, for economic reasons, but they’re back in an unexpected context: a deepening frontline between Ukraine and Russia.

This is largely because Ukraine broke the economy with a business model that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, could not have: a cheap, easy-to-use weapons platform that cannot be jammed or shot down cheaply, while enhancing its threat to Russian cities far from the front lines.