Shahed: The $50,000 Iranian drone that Russia is using to launch nightly attacks on Ukraine

Indian Express

3 days ago

By the time most Ukrainians go to sleep, they know what's coming. The telltale buzz of propellers cuts through the night. Sirens follow. Explosions, sometimes near, sometimes far. The war in Ukraine, now entering its fourth year, has evolved into a nightly aerial siege—driven not by fighter jets or cruise missiles, but by waves of cheap Iranian-designed drones called Shaheds.
On a single night in June, Russia launched 479 long-range drones—most of them Shaheds—toward Ukrainian cities. Since mid-February 2025, when US President Donald Trump publicly pushed for a ceasefire in Ukraine, Russia has averaged over 1,000 drone launches per week, a staggering fivefold increase from the year before, according to analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS.) 'There has not been a single, uninterrupted three-day period without Shahed launches this year,' Yasir Atalan, a CSIS data fellow, told The New York Times. 'Civilians have faced or heard Shaheds almost every night.'
The relentless strikes rely on a drone that costs as little as $50,000 to make—about as a BMW M Sport costs in India. The cost to shoot one down? Often more than a million dollars. As James Black of the RAND Corporation put it, 'the advent of cheap commercial drones has sharply tilted the cost asymmetry towards offense.' Shaheds now define a new form of attritional warfare: one where attackers don't just aim to destroy—they aim to exhaust.
Originally manufactured in Iran and shipped disassembled to Russia in early 2023, Shaheds are now produced locally in Russian factories. The weapon's design has been tweaked: some units include cameras, others feature improved anti-jamming systems and AI-assisted navigation. Investigations by the Associated Press revealed a Russian initiative, dubbed Operation False Target, to create decoy drones that overwhelm Ukrainian radar systems.
The drone itself is crude in appearance but deadly in effect. It looks like a giant black lawn dart, about 11 feet long, with a four-cylinder engine and wooden propeller. The nose holds a warhead, the tail spins the propeller, and the fuselage—sometimes reinforced with honeycombed cardboard between plastic layers—houses off-the-shelf electronics: modems, circuit boards, servo motors, antennas. Many of these components are foreign-made, and easily sourced.
Despite their simplicity, Shaheds can fly more than 1,000 miles, often under radar. They're slow and loud, but effective. Britain's Ministry of Defence recently noted that their predictable flight paths make them 'easy to target using conventional air defenses'—yet there simply aren't enough interceptors to keep up. Israel's Iron Dome, Ukraine's NASAMS, and other Western air defences are designed to stop sophisticated missiles. But when Shaheds come in waves of hundreds, defence systems get saturated and very expensive to reload.
For Russia, the math is simple. A Shahed costs a fraction of a ballistic missile or cruise missile. An Iskander-M runs upwards of $2 million, and a Kh-101 far more. These more advanced weapons often require jets, ships, or bombers to launch—systems that take years to build and millions more to maintain. Shaheds, by contrast, can be fired from racks welded by someone with basic metalworking skills. And unlike missiles, they don't require elite crews to operate.
Ukraine has tried to adapt. Air defences now prioritise more expensive threats. But many Shaheds are not aimed at military targets. They strike power stations, water plants, and residential neighbourhoods. Human Rights Watch and Ukrainian officials say the strikes often violate international laws of war. 'Night after night, Shaheds slam into buildings of no discernible military value,' one official said.
Iran, meanwhile, has made drones a pillar of its military and diplomatic strategy. Iranian-made drones, or local variants, have been used not only in Ukraine, but by Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. In June 2025, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles toward Israel, some of them intercepted, others not. In January 2024, a Shahed drone launched by an Iran-backed militia killed three US service members in Jordan.
Though most Shaheds are not autonomous, experts warn that AI integration is rapidly advancing. 'We are now approaching a world where weapons select and engage targets on their own,' said one US defence analyst. The Pentagon defines lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) as systems that, once activated, can 'select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator.' Russia and Iran are believed to be exploring similar technologies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the proliferation of Shahed manufacturing is a global threat. Ukrainian intelligence believes Russia is sharing production techniques with North Korea. 'This must be addressed now,' Zelensky said. 'Not when thousands of upgraded Shahed drones and ballistic missiles begin to threaten Seoul and Tokyo.'
With monthly launches now exceeding 4,000, the Kremlin could build up a stockpile of tens of thousands of drones a year, each capable of flying from Russia to the capitals of NATO countries. This shift from large, expensive platforms to swarms of inexpensive, disposable weapons, has reshaped modern warfare.
The future isn't armoured tanks or fighter jets. It's low-tech, black-winged, and buzzing overhead at 3 a.m.