Shahed and Geran: The evolution of Russia’s deep strikes

“On the night of June 29 (from 19:00 on June 28), the enemy attacked with 537 air attack vehicles:

– 477 Shahed strike UAVs and simulator drones of various types from the directions: Kursk, Shatalovo, Orel, Bryansk, Millerovo – RF, Chauda – TOT of Crimea, more than 250 of them – “Shaheeds”;

– 4 Kh-47M2 “Dagger” aeroballistic missiles from the airspace of Tambov Oblast – RF;

– 7 Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles from Voronezh Oblast – RF and TOT of Crimea;

– 41 Kh-101/Iskander-K cruise missiles from Saratov, Kursk, Bryansk Oblast – RF;

– 5 Caliber cruise missiles from the Black Sea;

– 3 S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles from Kursk region – Russia.

The air attack was repelled by aviation, anti-aircraft missile troops, electronic warfare and unmanned systems units, and mobile fire groups of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.”

This is the readout from the Ukrainian Air Force on the morning of the 29th June. It recounts the types of munitions used against Ukraine’s cities and critical national infrastructure over the course of the previous night. It was the largest attack in pure numbers that Russia has launched, but most of the mass was provided by the Shahed and Geran one way attack drones. 

As Russia’s frontline aviation began to wind down its operations at around 1600 on the 28th June, the Ukrainian Air Force began to issue alerts via its Telegram account, noting the movement and potential threat from Shaheds and Gerans. Each new threat received a new post, leading to a steady and at times intense thread that lasted until 0354 on the morning of the 29th, at which point the frontline aviation resumed its bombing and reconnaissance of Ukrainian positions. 

By that time, a Ukrainian pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Ustimenko, was dead and his valuable F-16 destroyed. Russian missiles and in all probability some Shaheds had found their way through Ukraine’s air defences to strike six locations. The missiles are the most capable element of Russia’s strike packages, and you can see that weapons like the Iskander ballistic missile and Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile have very low interception rates. They are also very accurate, but relatively slow and expensive to build when compared with the Gerans. So, what are these one way attack UAVs, and how are they used? 

Shahed and SODCIT

Within Russian doctrine is a concept called the Strategic Operation to Destroy Critical Infrastructure (SODCIT), which is a calculated attempt to shape a conflict and deter an adversary, or defeat an adversary, by targeting critical national infrastructure (CNI). The idea is that a society will struggle to resist if it does not have power and basic services are threatened, which could shape a war in Russia’s favour or prevent it from occurring altogether. This is why Russian attacks will focus on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure at the onset of winter; heating and water tend to be centrally provided in Ukraine, supplied by the same power station that also generates electricity, for example. Destroying them or the substations responsible for distributing the power leads to a loss of heating, which is an immense challenge for the long Ukrainian winters. 

Prior to 2022, Russian theory assumed that large cruise and ballistic missile strikes would be sufficient to achieve this effect, an assumption that Ukraine has obviously challenged. Cruise missiles take a long time to fly to their target; A Kh-101, which is one of Russia’s preferred long-range strike assets, would take more than three hours to travel 2,500 km – for example. If the same missile is launched over the Caspian Sea, which Russian strategic bombers seem fond of doing, it would still take up to two hours to reach Kyiv. This gives ample time for warnings, and even if the missiles fly alternate routes and complex strike approaches – which is common – Ukraine has a sufficient density of air defence assets to engage them. 

For example, in two representative attacks in March and August 2024, around 40% of the assets that Russia used were Shaheds or Gerans, the remainder were missiles. Ukraine was able to intercept around 83-86% of the 165 cruise missiles launched between those two attacks, the interception rates against Shaheds was higher, but most of the Iskanders and Kinzhals made it through. If the Kh-101 is taken as an indicative missile and cost at around $1 million, then Russia may have fired $165 million worth of missiles for $23 million worth to find their target, which is a relatively poor return on an investment. Now consider that Russia has taken it upon itself to conduct these attacks almost every night and it becomes clear that the cost is not sustainable. So, Shaheds and Gerans have come to play an ever more important role, with new variants developed and huge quantities produced, increasing the strain on Ukraine’s air defences. For comparison, the 475 Shaheds launched on the 28th June could have cost as little as $9.5 million, with each drone thought to cost between $20,000 and $50,000. So, while the costs of using them at that scale are still significant, they are much smaller than the large salvoes of missiles which still fail to reach their targets. 

The Shahed variants

Several variants have emerged within the Shahed family as well as different types of warheads and guidance system as Ukraine has adapted to the threat. The tech profile below provides and overview.

Shahed/Geran

The first Shahed-136 from Iran was launched against Kyiv in October 2022, killing four civilians amongst the first signs that Russia was beginning to struggle to resource its SODCIT against Ukraine. Over time, it emerged that Iran had supplied a few thousand of these munitions to Russia along with the support necessary to establish a factory in Alabuga as well as the plans required to build Shaheds domestically. Over time, a separate version emerged which is known as the Geran-2, which is the name given to Shaheds made in Russia. Russia now makes hundreds of these drones every week, enabling it to increase its usage to 200 per week in September 2024, and then to 1,000 per week by March 2025. Within this, it is important to note that around 110 Shaheds and Gerans managed to reach their target per week in March 2025, which is ten times higher than the average for the previous year, according to CSIS. 

There are significant differences between the Geran and the Shahed, the former reflecting the higher quality production processes in Russia as well as improved targeting and navigation. This includes a fuselage made of fiberglass over woven carbon fiber rather than lightweight honeycomb as was the case with the Shahed. 

Dimensions

Shaheds are big, and it sometimes doesn’t come across well in imagery. Its dimensions are as follows: 

• Length: 3.5 metres
• Wingspan: 2.5 metres
• Weight: 200 kg
• Range: Greater than 970 km
• Speed: 185 km/h
• Payload: 50 kg – 90kg 

Payload

BSF-50 – high explosive warhead

BST-52 – Russian thermobaric warhead

TBBCh-50M – a 50 kg thermobaric warhead

OFZBCh-50 – high explosive fragmentation warhead

Other payloads are thought to include versions with multiple shaped charges and many warheads have been observed with makeshift fragmentation sleeves consisting of ball bearings wrapped around the warhead. 

Propulsion

A variety of engines are used from China and elsewhere in the base versions, which provide good range but a low speed. Russia is also developing and has used a jet powered version which is much faster, reducing the warning available to Ukraine’s defenders. 

Navigation/guidance

The original Shaheds came with a form of commercial guidance system, which was ultimately quite easy for Ukraine to jam or spoof. Gerans are more complex, often carrying a variant of Russia’s Kometa-M satellite navigation system, which initially featured four patch antennas. Over time, and seemingly dependent upon the mission, the number of patch antennas has been increased – first to six or eight, then twelve, and most recently to 16. The number of antennas increases the number of electronic warfare systems that Ukraine has to bring to bear to disrupt the satellite link to the Geran, so those systems with sixteen antennas are more resilient to jamming. 

Alongside this, some Gerans carry SIM cards allowing them to connect to Ukraine’s mobile phone network. The exact purposes of the SIM cards and the 4G connections to the Geran and Shahed drones is unclear, it could provide a datalink to them during flight, or as an additional form of navigation using Location Based Services, which rely on data gathered by cell phone towers as the drone passes them. 

More recently, some images have appeared via Telegram reportedly showing Gerans fitted with low resolution cameras and NVIDIA Jetson single board computers. Together this technology stack could enable the Shahed to navigate autonomously using computer vision or provide an operator with the tools necessary to control the drone onto a target more precisely. This appears to signal a shift to the Geran’s performing as a reconnaissance and strike platform. The drones are also fitted with a radio control link allowing a user to direct them at ranges up to 150 km. Some videos have emerged showing these drones being used against targets on the frontline. Earlier reports from Ukraine also indicated that Russia has the ambition to use AI to generate swarms of Shaheds and Gerans. 

This loadout is not found on every Geran, however, but most do carry the SIM card and power bank which is used to transmit telemetry data back to Russia and inform the Russian command on the location of Ukrainian air defences using chat bots on Telegram. 

Shahed and Geran – Concept of operations

The Gerans and Shaheds are launched in waves from catapults in Russia and Crimea. The waves often follow routes previously selected by reconnaissance UAVs or other assets where it is hoped that Ukraine will have fewer defending assets. They will often fly circuitous routes, rather than directly to their target city, which appears to be an attempt to confuse the defenders and further complicate the placement of defensive assets. This may extend the flight time of the Geran or Shahed, extending the time that attacks take. 

Previously, the drones were set on a relatively low flight altitude in the hopes that this would also reduce the warning available to Ukraine’s air defences, but this made them vulnerable to Ukraine’s mobile air defence groups, so their altitude has now been increased, which puts them out of reach of more cost-effective air defence solutions like machine guns and cannons. Finally, Russia now launches an increasing quantity of decoy drones called Gerber, within its drone salvos. Equipped with radar reflectors, they mimic the signature of a Shahed and further complicate the job of responding to them. They will frequently arrive at a target location from multiple different directions and altitudes, which adds yet further pressure to Ukraine’s response. 

Calibre comment

The Shahed has allowed Russia to continue its SODCIT against Ukraine and largely served to frustrate Ukraine’s attempts to expand and increase its air defence capabilities. In the event that Ukraine runs out of air defence interceptors altogether, the mass attacks would begin to generate very considerable damage and pressure to end the war quickly. This forces Ukraine to focus much of its resources on air defence of strategic assets rather than the frontline. 

So, that is a brief overview of the Shahed drones used by Russia and Iran. The type has been rapidly iterated and improved upon, demonstrating the ability of Russia’s defence industry to respond to the changing needs of a war. In the event of a conflict with NATO, it is likely that the Geran would also be used as part of a mixed missile salvo, generating similar challenges for the defence of Europe’s skies. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on 30th June, 2025.