Latest news with #Shaheds
Business Insider
7 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Ukraine is pumping millions of dollars into drones built to kill the Russian ones attacking its cities
Russia is regularly hammering Ukrainian cities with one-way attack drones. Kyiv, however, intends to meet that threat by pouring millions of dollars into interceptor drones designed to engage Russian threats. In a statement posted to Telegram on Wednesday, Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal announced four contracts for drone intercept technology worth over $72 million. "Special attention was given to drone interceptors capable of countering Russian Shaheds," Shmyhal said in the statement, which noted that Ukraine is also pursuing international partnerships for additional purchases. Earlier in the month, the director of Ukraine's Defense Procurement Agency, Arsen Zhumadilov, told local media that the agency had contracts for tens of thousands of interceptor drones, weapons which are now being mass-produced. Zhumadilov did not provide a value for those contracts. Interceptor drones have become an inexpensive option for defeating front-line loitering munitions and higher-end uncrewed reconnaissance assets, but the drones are increasingly being seen as an option for countering Shaheds, a term for a family of Iranian-designed attack drones that Russia also makes domestically. Russia frequently deploys homemade versions of the Iranian-designed Shahed, called the Geran-2, to bolster its strike packages, mixing them in with decoy activity and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Such employment creates a more complicated threat for Ukrainian air defense systems, already stretched thin. Ukraine has reported that Russia is arming its drones with bigger payloads and thermobaric warheads, increasingly operating them in ways that make them difficult to shoot down with inexpensive solutions, like mounted machine guns. Ukraine has more sophisticated air defenses, but limited availability and prohibitive costs are pushing the country to find more innovative solutions. Ukraine is believed to have about half a dozen operational Patriot batteries among its other air defenses. A Patriot battery consists of as many as eight launchers, which can hold up to 16 missiles. These weapons are useful for countering aircraft and ballistic missile threats. US lawmakers approved a decision to send more Patriot air defense systems to Germany last week after agreeing that Germany would frontload Patriot systems to boost Ukrainian defenses. Each Patriot interceptor missile costs over $3 million. Missile production is limited, and overuse strains already limited stockpiles. That makes them less than ideal for combating drones. Defensive interceptor drones function similarly to interceptor missiles, though drones are drastically cheaper and more easily produced. Without other options, the continuous barrage of Shahed-style drones flooding Ukrainian airspace, coupled with missile strikes, is bound to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses. Recent assessments by Western military experts suggest Russia is poised to overwhelm Ukrainian cities with thousands of drones in a single night. In an effort to tout domestic drone production, Russian state media recently broadcast modified American-designed pickup trucks featuring a launch configuration for Shahed-style drones, which are capable of loitering in the air before diving onto a target. Russia began using the Iranian-manufactured drones three years ago, but it quickly turned to its own domestic industries for producing the drones.
AU Financial Review
22-07-2025
- Politics
- AU Financial Review
Russia's new swarm drone tactics are winning the war
London | Kyiv | Russia's 'swarm' tactics against Ukraine are increasingly cutting through Ukraine's defences, with drones striking targets at three times the typical rate in recent months, according to official data. Mass attacks of Shaheds, an Iranian-designed drone now manufactured in Russia, appear to be overwhelming Ukraine's beleaguered air defences, with the drone hit rate reaching its highest levels since Moscow's invasion. Financial Times
New York Post
21-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Russian teenagers man ‘world's biggest drone factory' used to attack Ukraine, state media shows
Russian teenagers are helping the country build its new line of suicide UAVs used to strike Ukraine in what Moscow officials have dubbed the 'world's biggest drone factory.' Footage from inside the Yelabuga production plant shows Russian students lined up as they help assemble the killer drones and study their internal mechanisms, according to Zvezda, the Russian army's TV channel. The state-run outlet touted that teens as young as 14 are invited to study and work at the factory, creating a pipeline that would see them employed at the drone facility once they finish college — fulfilling Russian President Vladimir Putin's goal of ramping up the country's attack against Ukraine. 4 Russian TV aired footage of teenagers helping construct Moscow's killer Geran-2 drones inside the Yelabuga factory on Sunday. TV Zvezda/east2west news 4 The relatively cheap drones have been behind the mass bombardments against Ukraine in recent months. TV Zvezda/east2west news The footage from inside the factory highlighted the in-house assembly line that puts the drones together from start to finish, with the army station showing the UAVs lifting off from the back of US RAM pickup trucks. As it celebrated the factory, the station claimed that Putin was pleased with the results and called for its success to be replicated across the country. The documentary specifically showed the young workers and other staffers completing countless Geran-2 drones, which are modeled after Iran's Shahed suicide aircraft. The Shaheds had served as Russia's primary weapon to attack Ukraine miles past the border, but Moscow is now able to produce the relatively cheap drones in-house. Experts have put the cost of the drones somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000 per aircraft. 4 Russian media touted that children as young as 14 can enter the drone-producing pipeline and gain full-time jobs at the factory once they finish college. TV Zvezda/east2west news The Geran-2, which can fly as far as 932 miles, is now the lynchpin of Russia's escalating bombardments against Ukraine ever since Moscow announced its mass production plans in 2023. Timur Shagivaleyev, the factory's general director, boasted that the workers at the Yelabuga plant have produced tens of thousands of new drones — nine times more than the 'several thousand Geran-2 drones' originally promised to the state two years ago. Shagivaleyev did not provide specific figures, nor did he say how many drones are currently being produced at the factory. 4 Smoke billows over Kyiv following a Russian drone attack, which has grown in intensity. REUTERS The Alabuga facility, which is part of the Special Economic Zone established in 2023, also has its own drone testing facility, Zvevda added. The plant has been previously eyed by Ukraine as a target to halt Russia's war machine, with one person killed after a Ukrainian drone was intercepted near the facility last month. Drones have become the primary tool of war in the conflict that has spanned more than three years, with Ukraine and Russia firing hundreds of UAVs a day to target military and energy infrastructure. Moscow, however, has been accused of using its drones to target civilians and residential areas, with schools and hospitals regularly under fire. The Kremlin has also been accused by the United Nations and humanitarian groups of using its drones to hunt down civilians, including children, in Kherson, where residents describe their city as a 'human safari' zone for Russian soldiers. With Post wires
Business Insider
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Business Insider
Russia appears to be launching its exploding Shahed-style drones from American-designed pickup trucks
Newly aired state media footage showed Russia operating what look to be American-designed Ram pickup trucks with Shahed-style drones ready for launch in the back. 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. — 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.
Business Insider
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Business Insider
Russia is making so many Iranian Shahed drones that it could soon launch 2,000 of them in a single night
The Kremlin is building its way toward a reality where it can soon launch 2,000 Shahed one-way attack drones in one night, according to two recent Western assessments. Maj. Gen. Christian Freuding, the German defense ministry's commander of planning and command staff, said in a Bundeswehr interview aired on Saturday that Russia was "striving to further increase production capacity" of its Shaheds. "They want to expand the drone attacks we just talked about," Freuding said. "The ambition is to be able to deploy 2,000 drones simultaneously." "We need to consider intelligent countermeasures," he added. In a separate assessment on Sunday, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote that Russia's per-night use of Shahed drones increased by 31% each month in June and July. "ISW assesses that Russia may be able to launch up to 2,000 drones in one night by November 2025, should this current growth trend in drone usage continue," its analysts wrote. However, they added that Russia likely wouldn't be able to consistently sustain 2,000 drone launches per day. Still, such capacity would be a stark jump from the fall of 2024, when Russia was launching roughly 2,000 drones a month at Ukraine. Shaheds are long-range Iranian exploding drones with estimated ranges of 600 to 1,200 miles, depending on the design. This year, Russia has continually increased the number of Shaheds and decoy drones it launches a night at Ukraine, recently peaking at 728 uncrewed aerial vehicles in one salvo earlier this month. Russia's Shahed production on the rise As these numbers surge, Ukraine and its allies fear that Russia's nightly attacks will overwhelm Kyiv's air defenses. "There will be 1,000 units per day and more. I'm not trying to scare anyone," wrote Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, wrote on July 4 about Russia's Shahed capacity. The Shahed is of Iranian design, but Russia has also been manufacturing its own versions of the drone locally in the Yelabuga Special Economic Zone since early 2023. Western governments and analysts say some vital parts for production come from China. In April, analysts from the International Institute for Strategic Studies wrote that satellite imagery showed that the area of Shahed-producing facilities has doubled since 2023. "Despite a steady flow of Shahed-136s from Iran, Moscow is heavily investing in its own production facilities," the IISS analysts wrote. Ukraine has periodically tried to strike Yelabuga with its own long-range fixed-wing drones, but it's unclear if the factories have sustained any significant damage. Kyiv's military intelligence also said in February that it had found production markings on some attack drones that mention the city of Izhevsk, possibly pointing to another production line there. NATO and Ukraine need cheaper defenses Freuding, the German general, said that against such quantity, it would be nonsensical to rely on expensive Western interceptors such as the Patriot system to destroy Shaheds. "We essentially need countermeasures that cost two, three, four thousand euros," he said. By comparison, a single Patriot system costs the US government $1.1 billion, and one of its missiles can cost about $4 million. Ukraine now uses a multilayered air defense network against Shahed waves, including surface-to-air missiles, air-launched missiles, and mobile fire groups that try to shoot down the Iranian drones with machine guns. A locally made interceptor drone, the Sting, is becoming popular, too. But Russia also fires ballistic missiles in tandem with the Shahed drones, and these require more advanced, long-range air defenses such as the Patriot to intercept. Kyiv is trying to persuade the US and its allies to provide it with more Patriot systems.
