Russia appears to be launching its exploding Shahed-style drones from American-designed pickup trucks
Zvezda, the Russian defense ministry's TV channel, released a video on Sunday spotlighting the large Yelabuga drone factory in the Tatarstan region, which is where the domestically produced version of the Shahed-136 is built.
While the footage primarily focuses on intricate manufacturing processes inside the sprawling factory, it also offers insight into how the deadly and highly destructive drones, known by the Russian designation Geran-2, can be launched.
The video shows at least one clearly identified American-designed Ram truck, with a drone mounted on the bed, charging down a runway-style strip of road surrounded by large mounds of dirt that could be designed to protect the site from attacks.
Additional frames in the footage show several drones taking off from unidentified black trucks with steep climbs, resembling airplanes.
At another point, the video shows five stationary black pickup trucks, all with drones mounted on the back. It also reveals the storage shelters in which the drones are kept before their potential use in the strikes against Ukraine. Like other truck-mounted launchers, the vehicles provide a flexible and mobile launch option.
🔴 This is how the Russian forces launch Shahed drones to attack Ukraine, using American Dodge pickup trucks, as seen in videos released by Russian state media. pic.twitter.com/Qhr04xzVBM
— UNITED24 Media (@United24media) July 20, 2025
The exact make and model of all the pickup trucks featured in Zvezda's footage are unclear. Stellantis, a multinational automotive group that owns Ram, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
The Iranian-made Shahed-136 is a one-way attack drone, or loitering munition, that can linger in the air for a period of time before diving down at its target and exploding on impact.
Russia started using the Iranian-imported Shaheds to attack Ukraine in 2022, but it has since started producing them at home. The Yelabuga factory — which is more than 1,000 miles from Ukraine's border — opened in 2023, allowing Moscow to rapidly scale up drone production without relying on Tehran.
Ukraine has targeted the Yelabuga factory with long-range drones on multiple occasions.
Russia uses the Shahed-style drones in nightly attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. The bombardments have grown in size in recent months, with some consisting of hundreds of attack and decoy drones — the latter are designed to exhaust Kyiv's increasingly strained air defenses.
Some recent Western assessments suggest that Moscow may eventually be able to launch thousands of drones in a single night, a bombardment that could greatly overwhelm Ukraine's already heavily exhausted air defenses.
Ukrainians have said Russia has introduced new tactics with its Shaheds, making their attacks more complicated, and have modified the drones to make them deadlier, including by swapping out the standard explosive payloads for thermobaric warheads.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
9 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump, European Union Commission prez give ‘50-50′ chance of striking trade deal after Scotland meeting: ‘Rebalancing'
President Trump and European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen both put the odds of reaching a trade deal at 50% ahead of their negotiations Sunday, but remained hopeful an agreement could be finalized. 'I think the President is right, we have a 50 to 50% chance to strike a deal. And indeed it is about rebalancing,' she told reporters in the DJT Ballroom at Trump Turnberry off the west coast of Scotland. Trump has given the EU an Aug. 1 deadline to ink a new trade deal with him or else face 30% tariffs. The EU is a block of 27 trade countries, which, taken together, traded about $1.68 trillion worth of goods with the US last year. Advertisement 3 President Donald Trump meets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland. AP 'This is the biggest deal. People don't realize this is bigger than any other deal,' Trump stressed ahead of his talks with the EU president. The president also noted that while a deal with the EU will address most outstanding trade-related issues, 'pharmaceuticals won't be part of it, because we have to have them made in the United States.' Advertisement Trump teased that he would know after about an hour whether or not a deal with the EU is possible before the Aug. 1 deadline and revealed that there are about 3 to 4 sticking points, but didn't detail specifics of what those issues are. He also aired his general grievances with European trade practices, particularly with automobiles and agriculture, though it wasn't clear if those were among the sticking points. 'We don't sell cars into Europe. We don't sell, essentially, agriculture of any great degree. They want to have their farmers do it, and they want to have their car companies do it,' he said. 'I'm not saying anything that nobody knows. We have a rough situation. If we want to sell cars in Europe, we're not allowed to. And as you know, they sell millions and millions of cars [into the US],' he added. 'What we want to do is make everybody happy.' Advertisement 3 The president also noted that while a deal with the EU will address most outstanding trade-related issues, 'pharmaceuticals won't be part of it, because we have to have them made in the United States.' Davide Bonaldo/SOPA Images/Shutterstock Von der Leyen, who flew to Scotland during Trump's four-day trip to the United Kingdom to meet with the American president, buttered him up 'as a tough negotiator and dealmaker.' 'And fair,' Trump interjected. Trump emphasized during his gaggle with reporters that he has no intention of delaying the Aug. 1 deadline before his customized 'Liberation Day' tariffs take effect. The president previously moved that deadline twice. Advertisement Rumors have swirled that Trump is eyeing a 15% baseline tariff on the EU, which would effectively cut his 'Liberation Day' proposal in half. Many Europeans have hoped he would drop that to the 10% baseline he has imposed on virtually all US imports — which is also the same rate he gave the United Kingdom during the tariff deal announced in May. 3 Trump emphasized during his gaggle with reporters that he has no intention of delaying the Aug. 1 deadline before his customized 'Liberation Day' tariffs take effect. Getty Images 'Better meaning lower?' Trump replied when a reporter asked him if he could do better than 15%. 'No.' So far, Trump has cut tariff deals with the UK, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The president teased that his team recently locked down another deal, but didn't specify which country. He also has a variety of tariffs in place now, such as a 25% rate on automobiles, aluminum, and steel, as well as 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico that don't comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He's also recently mused about jacking up tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Trump has also reached a tariff truce with China and given Beijing an Aug. 12 deadline to cut a broader deal. Earlier this month, he gave Moscow an ultimatum to cut a peace deal with neighboring Ukraine within 50 days or else face 100% secondary tariffs on Russian energy — meaning levies imposed on countries that import from Russia.
Atlantic
10 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Zelensky Went Soft on Corruption Because the U.S. Did
Volodymyr Zelensky built a mythic reputation as a lonely bulwark against global tyranny. On Tuesday, the president of Ukraine signed that reputation away, enacting a law that gutted the independence of his country's anti-corruption agencies just as they closed in on his closest political allies, reportedly including one of his longtime business partners and a former deputy prime minister. To justify the decision, he cloaked it in an invented conspiracy, insinuating that Russian moles had implanted themselves in the machinery of justice. This is a scoundrel's playbook. Despite the ongoing war, Ukrainians swamped the streets of Kyiv in protest of their president's betrayal of democracy, forcing Zelensky to introduce new legislation reversing the bill he had just signed into law. It was a concession of error—and possibly an empty gesture, because the new bill is hardly a lock to pass the legislature. That Zelensky brazenly weakened Ukraine's anti-corruption guardrails in the first place shouldn't come as a shock. They were erected only under sustained pressure from the Obama administration as part of an explicit bargain: In exchange for military and financial support, Ukraine would rein in its oligarchs and reform its public institutions. Over time, the country drifted, however unevenly, toward a system that was more transparent, less captive to hidden hands. But in the Trump era, the United States has grown proudly tolerant of global corruption. In fact, it actively encourages its proliferation. Beyond the president's own venal example, this is deliberate policy. Brick by brick, Donald Trump has dismantled the apparatus that his predecessors built to constrain global kleptocracy, and leaders around the world have absorbed the fact that the pressure for open, democratic governance is off. Anne Applebaum: Kleptocracy, Inc. Three weeks into his current term, Trump paused enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—loudly declaring that the United States wasn't going to police foreign bribery. Weeks later, America skipped a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's anti-bribery working group for the first time since its founding 30 years ago. As the head of the anti-corruption group Transparency International warned, Trump was sending 'a dangerous signal that bribery is back on the table.' For decades, the more than prosecute bribery cases; it tried to cultivate civil-society organizations that helped emerging democracies combat corruption themselves. But upon returning to the presidency, Trump destroyed USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, dismantling the constellation of government agencies that had quietly tutored investigative journalists, trained judges, and funded watchdogs. These groups weren't incidental casualties in DOGE's seemingly scattershot demolition of the American state. Trump long loathed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which he described as a 'horrible law,' an animus stoked by the fact that some of his closest associates have been accused of murky dealings abroad. Crushing programs and organizations that fight kleptocracy meshed with the 'America First' instincts of his base; the likes of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon abhor the export of liberal values to the world. From the wreckage of these institutions, a Trump Doctrine has taken shape, one that uses American economic and political power to shield corrupt autocrats from accountability. Benjamin Netanyahu, on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, has been a prime beneficiary. Just as he was preparing to testify under oath, Trump denounced the prosecution as a 'political witch hunt' and threatened to withhold U.S. aid if the trial moved forward. Given Israel's reliance on American support, the threat had bite. Not long after Trump's outburst, the court postponed Netanyahu's testimony, citing national-security concerns. Trump acts as if justice for strongmen is a moral imperative. No retaliatory measure is apparently off limits. To defend his populist ally in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who faces charges related to an attempted coup, Trump revoked the visa of Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case. Last month, Trump threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian steel, aluminum, and agricultural exports to punish the country for Bolsonaro's prosecution. This is hard-nosed realism, not just ideological kinship. To protect himself, Trump must defend the rights of populist kleptocrats everywhere. He must discredit the sort of prosecution that he might someday face. That requires recasting malfeasance as perfectly acceptable statesmanship. Listen: The kleptocracy club By stripping anti-corruption from the moral vocabulary of American foreign policy, Trump is reengineering the global order. He's laying the foundation for a new world in which kleptocracy flourishes unfettered, because there's no longer a superpower that, even rhetorically, aspires to purge the world of corruption. Of course, the United States has never pushed as hard as it could, and ill-gotten gains have been smuggled into its bank accounts, cloaked in shell companies. Still, oligarchs were forced to disguise their thievery, because there was at least the threat of legal consequence. In the world that Trump is building, there's no need for disguise—corruption is a credential, not a liability. Zelensky is evidence of the new paradigm. Although his initial campaign for president in 2019 was backed by an oligarch, he could never be confused for Bolsonaro or Netanyahu. He didn't enrich himself by plundering the state. But now that Trump has given the world permission to turn away from the ideals of good governance, even the sainted Zelensky has seized the opportunity to protect the illicit profiteering of his friends and allies. Yet there's a legacy of the old system that Trump hasn't wholly eliminated: the institutions and civil societies that the United States spent a generation helping build. In Ukraine, those organizations and activists have refused to accept a retreat into oligarchy, and they might still preserve their governmental guardians against corruption. For now, they are all that remain between the world and a new golden age of impunity.
New York Post
39 minutes ago
- New York Post
Democrats self-own bragging about inflation shows the left has learned NOTHING
Everybody makes mistakes. Not everyone makes the same mistakes over and over again. Last week, the geniuses in charge of maintaining the Democratic Party's social media picked at a fresh wound — and showed, again, exactly why it lost the 2024 election. The blue team's official X account shared a line chart showing the change in the price of various groceries — meat, dairy, produce, etc. — over time, and asserting that 'prices are higher today than they were on [sic] July 2024.' 'Trump's America,' read the caption. The problem? The last part of the line barely went up. The blue team's official X account, with the caption 'Trump's America,' shared a chart showing the change in the price of various groceries, asserting that 'prices are higher today than they were on [sic] July 2024.' Eric Daugherty, /X And what it actually showed was a massive increase in prices between 2021 and 2024. In other words: over the course of former President Joe Biden's White House tenure. 'I would just advise Democrats not to post about inflation given their track record,' suggested conservative influencer A.G. Hamilton. 'Might save them the embarrassment of having to delete their posts after getting dunked on' — which is exactly what they did. 'This is the gang that couldn't shoot straight!' marveled Fox Business host Stuart Varney. And of course Team Trump got in on the action. The problem with the chart was that it actually showed a massive increase in prices between 2021 and 2024 – when Biden was president. RapidResponse47/X What's notable about the braindead blunder, though, is not the blunder itself. It was that it represented yet another admission, eight and a half months after they surrendered the presidency to Donald Trump for the second time in three election cycles, that the Democrats still haven't made a sincere effort at diagnosing the reasons for their unpopularity — much less addressing them. A new Wall Street Journal poll found that their party continues to suffer as a result — to the point that just 33% of Americans hold a favorable view of it, and 63% view it unfavorably. Both Donald Trump (-7) and the GOP (-11) are also underwater, but may as well be polling as well as ice cream compared to the Democrats. The same holds true of the public's view of various issues; voters still trust the GOP more than the alternative when it comes to the economy, inflation, immigration and foreign policy. If that doesn't wake Democrats up to the provenance of all their political pain, nothing will. The Left has long relied on comforting fallacies to numb the discomfort that accompanies defeat. After 2016, elected Democrats and their media allies insisted that Trump's shocking victory was only possible thanks to Russian meddling. And now, they're laboring under the misimpression that return to power can be attributed to Republicans' superior, but decepting messaging — an almost supernatural ability to compel Americans to believe that which isn't so. If only they could convince the public of the truth, they'd surely prevail. But the cold, hard truth is that it's always been about the substance, stupid — as the unflattering data they so proudly shared last week demonstrates. Kamala Harris was deposited into the dustbin of history because she was the top lieutenant in an administration that had proven a miserable failure long before her boss's implosion last summer. Americans spent the entirety of the Biden years telling pollsters that their lives were demonstrably, palpably worse as a result of historic price hikes. Biden & Co. responded to these pleas for relief by denying the existence of inflation until they couldn't any longer. Then, when they finally did implicitly admit to the effects of the nearly $2 trillion boondoggle they passed in 2021, they slapped the name 'Inflation Reduction Act' on yet another profligate spending bill that every layman in America knew would only compound the problem. There are similar stories to be told about Americans' dissatisfaction with Biden's approach to foreign policy, his abdication of his duty to secure the border, and his championing of a radical social agenda that maintains up is down, left is right, and black is white. Their stubborn refusal to grapple with this incontrovertible truth is also reportedly set to be reflected in an upcoming 2024 autopsy conducted by the DNC. The New York Times reports that it will 'steer clear of the decisions made by the Biden-turned-Harris campaign,' and instead 'focus more on outside groups and super PACs that spent hundreds of millions of dollars aiding the Biden and Harris campaigns through advertising, voter registration drives and turnout efforts.' It's like watching a restaurant serving inedible food invest in new plateware. The gripe has never been with the Democrats' presentation or voters' tastes. It's with the product itself.
