Russian jet-powered drones are the new challenge for the Ukrainian Air Forces. The recent updates of the original Iranian Shahed drones, developed by Russia, are much faster than their previous versions, making them harder to shoot down, and are remotely piloted. A greater deployment of this technology against Ukraine – 800 in just four days – has allowed the Russian army to increase the intensity and duration of bombings against Kyiv and its surroundings, which in the last six consecutive days have left more than fifty dead, including 12 fatalities this Tuesday, and dozens injured.
Moscow seeks to “wear down” Ukraine and its population, warns Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, while also aiming to “paralyze” the country’s capital, adds Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky.
The new versions of Shahed drones are faster and harder to shoot down
In recent days, swarms of drones, many of them powered by jet engines, have subjected Kyiv and its residents to the constant sound of alerts and a paralysis of the city’s economic activity, with attacks occurring both day and night against homes, warehouses, postal service offices, or supermarkets. The deadliest was the attack using several of these drones against an ammunition depot in Myla, near the capital, last Friday, which caused several explosions and left 38 dead.
Beyond the danger and the need to go to shelters due to the attacks, businesses close their doors and the metro stops running, especially at its crossing of the Dnipro River, which divides the capital, causing chaos. Among the passengers trapped on the crowded platforms waiting for the service interrupted on Monday by another air raid alert to resume was Ulianna Olynnyk, a 38-year-old nurse and psychologist, who had been waiting for an hour to cross with her 11- and 7-year-old children to go to school. She told Reuters that the family had been forced to spend the previous night with relatives after the alerts interrupted their journey home.
“I’m already thinking that maybe we should bring sleeping bags and sleep in the metro, at the station near the institute… Last year was difficult at school and now, honestly, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do,” lamented Olynnyk.
And with the start of the school year, the mayor of Kyiv is considering implementing remote classes. “The prolonged air raid alerts are affecting not only the safety of residents but also the operation of businesses, logistics, transportation, schools, and daycare centers,” laments Prime Minister Koretsky.
Complaints from Kyiv residents also abound on social media. “If everything, or almost everything, stops every hour in the capital due to a drone flying over the area, we won’t be able to hold out for long,” recently lamented Mykhailo Zhernakov on Facebook, a Ukrainian who is director of a legal analysis center.
Russia fired 2,800 jet-powered drones in August
In four days, Russia launched nearly 1,500 drones against Ukraine, more than half of them jet-powered, stated the Ukrainian president. A figure that rises to 2,800 units in August, reported the spokesperson of the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuriy Ihnat. Their new features cause their interception rate to be lower (60%) than that of conventional drones, of which about 90% are shot down.
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According to Ihnat, Russia has increased the deployment of this type of weaponry since July. “The enemy has changed the weapons it uses more than its tactics (…) It used five times more jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in July than in June. That was the month when the number of these UAVs, along with the Banderol missile-launching drones, began to increase significantly,” the spokesperson pointed out in statements to Ukrainian television referring to another new weapon used by Russia: a hybrid missile that crosses cruise and drone technologies (and which Ukrainian intelligence points to as the next threat if not the parallel one).
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Ukraine suffers a shortage of interceptor missiles, particularly US Patriot missiles, whose availability has drastically decreased since the start of the war in the Middle East, to defend against the growing number of Russian ballistic missiles. Now, facing the new threat, Ukrainian developers are working against the clock to achieve drones capable of matching the performance of the Russians.
“The most difficult task is intercepting jet drones,” Zelensky acknowledged on social media on Sunday. “Currently, it is mainly our fighter jets that protect us from them. We are working to ensure that we have the necessary interceptors. Four companies have developed relevant interceptor drones, and one of them has the most advanced technology,” he explained without giving further details.
Although these drones are known in Ukraine as Shaheds, in Russia they are called Geran 2. The next known versions, Geran 3, 4, and 5, are powered by jet engines instead of the original piston engine. According to the Ukrainian military news website Militarniy, which cites the Ukrainian intelligence agency (GUR), Russia produces about 3,000 units of the last two models each month.
The Geran 5 can reach speeds of 600 km per hour
The first adaptation of the Iranian Shahed 238 is a transitional model with a flight speed of 300 km/h. But according to the GUR, the new technology incorporated in the Geran 4, for example, has allowed it to increase its cruising speed from 280-330 km/h to 350-500 km/h, and a flight range from 600 to 850 kilometers. Meanwhile, the Geran 5 has a range of up to 950 km and can reach speeds of 600 km/h.
Besides speed, another advantage is its capacity to be remotely piloted thanks to the incorporation of a modem, more expensive than Starlink terminals, which allows the operator to direct it against a target in real time.
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