We recently looked at a pair of extremely rare hand grenades which have been seen in use in Ukraine – the Nammo Scalable Offensive Hand Grenade and Mk 14 Mod 0 Anti-Structural Munition Hand Grenade. Today, we’ll take a look at another rare grenade that has been seen in the Ukrainian armed forces – the Australian F1.

Developed by Australian Defence Industries (now Thales Australia), the F1 is a fragmentation grenade. Introduced in the late 1990s, the F1 has a filling of 30g of RDX and approximately 4,000 2.4mm steel balls. It has an aluminium body and a total weight of 375g. The F1 uses a 5 second delay fuze and has a stated lethal radius of 6 metres.

The first sighting of one of the grenades I’ve come across dates to late April 2023 but their presence in-country likely dates back further. An F1 was seen alongside a collection of NATO and Russian designs in a short video posted by a Ukrainian combatant.

In early November 2023, a photograph of a member of 47th Mechanised Brigade featured an Australian F1 on his vest. Several weeks later a photo of various patterns of grenade was posted by the 108th Territorial Defence Forces brigade on 17 November. The photo was taken during a familiarisation training session and features various types of grenade including an Australian F1. A short video from a Ukrainian combatant showing an F1 was shared online in early December, it is marked ‘0135 ADI 18’. This is the typical marking for all of the F1s seen in Ukraine.

The next sighting I’ve come across is a captured example featuring in a video from the Russian Крупнокалиберный Переполох youtube channel. The video, posted on 10 May 2024, features several captured F1s and shows the grenade being tested. He likens it to a Christmas tree decoration in shape and after testing a grenade on a collection of steel barrels he found the lethality of the grenade unimpressive with limited penetration shown on barrels within 4 metres of the detonation.

Until early 2025, sightings were sparse, on 14 March, personnel with the 14th Regiment of Unmanned Systems Forces shared a photo of kit and equipment, one of the grenades visible is an F1. On 25 March, a Russian sapper telegram page shared photographs of a captured F1. Additional images of a captured F1 were posted on another, now defunct Russian sapper telegram page, along with comments hypothesising that the grenade’s small fragmentation balls wouldn’t retain kinetic energy over distance.

In August a combatant with Ukraines airborne forces shared a photograph of an impressive collection of grenades, collected for familisation purposes. Tucked in on the left of the collection is an Australian F1. In mid-October, combatant with Ukraine’s special operations forces shared a photograph of an F1 alongside some UDZ-pattern fuzes.

At the end of 2025 a number of F1 grenades appeared on the auction site Reibert.info. The earliest listing, however, dates to late January 2025 when a demiled example was sold for 3900 UAH ($88). From December 2025 to February 2026, a number of other grenades (with their explosive elements removed) were sold for between 4000 UAH ($90) and 8201 UAH ($185).

In January 2026, another Russian sapper telgeram shared a photo of a captured F1, showing the grenade disassembled. Most recently, on 20 February, Russian journalist Dmitry Kulko shared a series of photos from the Russian 810th Brigade’s collection of captured Ukrainian weapons and kit. The post included an example of an Australian F1.

While its unclear when the grenades arrived in Ukraine, the Australian National Audit Office confirmed that grenades were part of lethal aid provided before February 2023. It’s also unknown how many of the grenades have been provided but from the available imagery they have been seen with units across Ukraine’s armed forces.

Special thanks to ReconUAV, AbraxasSpa, Weapon Illustrated, Ukraine Weapons Warfare.

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