January 22, 2026:
Iran developed its delta-wing 200 kg propeller driven Shahed 136 drone a decade ago and it was first used by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen during 2019. After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Iran provided Russia with Shahed 136s. By the end of 2022 Iran agreed to assist Russia in building a factory in Russia that would produce a Russian version of the Shahed 136 called Geran. Until late 2024, when the Geran factory in Russia was operational, Iran manufactured the Geran and received help from Russia in upgrading the Shaheed drones. Since 2022, Russia has used about 50,000 Shaheds and Gerans against Ukraine. During 2025 that meant Ukraine had to deal with five to six thousand Gerans a month. Ukrainian interception methods were quite effective, and only about ten percent of the drones reached their targets. Each of these drones costs Russia about $20,000.
Russia is now producing over 5,000 Gerans a month. These 200 kg drones travel at a speed of 180 kilometers an hour at an altitude of about 100 meters. They carry a 50 kg warhead. GPS navigation is jammable when close to the target while the unjammable, but less accurate INS backup is not affected.
Russia has continually upgraded its Gerans with improved electronics. That means guidance systems that are resistant to jamming and use more effective and flexible guidance systems. The first Gerans only had inertial guidance systems and a CRPA/Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna. This arrangement soon failed as the Ukrainians used more powerful jamming and misdirection/spoofing techniques. To deal with this, in early 2025 improved CRPAs and a video camera were added to keep the Gerans effective. After that Ukrainian SIMs were added so the Gerans could use cell phone signals for navigation. At this point Gerans were able to communicate with each other and operate in preplanned clusters and cooperate with each other in a mesh network to limit the impact of Ukrainian jamming and other electronic warfare techniques. That soon led to use of Chinese MESH communication systems that enabled Russian ground based operators to control groups of Gerans. The operators could change targets or have the Gerans fly higher or lower to deal with Ukrainian countermeasures. A more recent addition was an infrared/night vision camera that was supplied with images of targets to improve accuracy as the Gerans came within visual range of a target.
By 2025 there was a larger variety of warheads available including thermobaric/fuel-air explosive, incendiary-fragmentation, high-explosive, high-explosive airburst, and submunitions. In 2024 a 90kg warhead was introduced that combined a penetrator-shaped charge with a layer of steel balls to pierce fortified infrastructure and inflict maximum casualties.
The most recent Geran-3 is a jet powered model that weighs 370 kg with a top speed of nearly 600 kilometers an hour. This is three times faster than the prop driven models and much more difficult for Ukrainian air defenses to deal with. Ukraine soon came up with a $3,000 interceptor drone called Wild Hornets’ Sting. Russia will probably respond with rear-facing video cameras on the Germans to alert operators to the presence of Ukrainian interceptors. The Gerans can take evasive maneuvers to avoid getting shot down. The Russians also experimented with a Geran equipped with a heat-seeking air-to-air missile.
Early in the war most of the Gerans were detected and destroyed by a clever Ukrainian air defense system created by two Ukrainian engineers. Called Sky Fortress, it consisted of nearly 10,000 cell phones mounted on two-meter poles with their microphones activated to detect the unique sounds of propeller-driven Gerans flying nearby. All this data goes to a command post where operators can triangulate on, locate and track the incoming drones and direct groups of gun trucks, equipped with multiple machine-guns and lots of ammunition, to positions the drones will pass over. The gun trucks have managed to destroy most of the drones they encountered. Ukraine built several hundred of these gun trucks and deployed them quickly via roads or cross country to carry out the interception. This system costs less than a single Patriot air defense missile. This drone defense system is operated by thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, and its simplicity, effectiveness and low cost has led NATO countries to request more details from the Ukrainians, including visits to NATO countries to further explain the system. Russia responded by having their Gerans fly higher, beyond the range of the machine-guns. Ukraine went on to develop new countermeasures.
Year by year Russia and Ukraine develop new offensive weapons to use against each other. Ukrainian air strikes use larger drones at targets deep inside Russia.
Like most western militaries, Russia has become dependent on the use of missiles and drones instead of artillery and airstrikes. Ukraine reports that, from late 2022 through late 2024, Russia used 4,800 missiles and nearly 150,000 attack drones. The missiles are expensive, most costing one or two million dollars each, while some of the drones cost $20,000. More recent battlefield drone designs cost only a few hundred dollars each. It was thought that the inexpensive drones would replace the use of 155mm artillery. The range and cost of artillery shells vary from $3,000 to $100,000 depending on version and purpose. The basic 155mm shell weighs 43 kg and contains about seven kg of explosives. The standard Russian equivalent is the 152mm shell.
The only Russian sources of weapons and munitions have been Iran and North Korea, which has a feeble economy with a GDP of only $30 billion and has long been subject to economic sanctions. Iran is also sanctioned but has oil to export and a GDP of over $400 billion. Russia has over fifty firms manufacturing over two dozen types of drones. These include three dozen different models, most of them with a range of 40 kilometers while about a dozen have ranges of 100 to 2,000 kilometers.
Russia is building a drone manufacturing infrastructure. By 2026 330,000 people will be involved in the development, production, and operation of drones by 2026. By 2035 1.5 million people may be involved in drone design, development and production.