How Russian Drone Developers Outpace the West

Russia’s Geran attack drones have morphed from crude versions of Iranian Shahed UAVs into an affordable and flexible strike system, with deadly results.

Russia’s Geran 2 attack drone / Source Sergej Flesh Facebook page

Moscow’s forces have launched nearly 50,000 Geran/Shahed drones into Ukraine since the full-scale invasion of 2022 and shifted to a near-continuous rhythm of strikes that have overwhelmed defenses, disabled infrastructure, and killed families in their homes.  

Figures from the Ukrainian Air Force’s daily bulletins in 2025 indicate that in January, Russia fired 2,599 long-range attack drones, rising to 3,902 in February and 4,198 in March, before major peaks in June (5,438) and July (6,297), which were followed by intense months in September (5,636), October (5,298), and November (5,445).  

In all, more than 38,000 long-range kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and decoys were launched between January and November. This represented 64% of the total since February 2022, marking a rapid acceleration in their use. During most months of 2025, there were Geran strikes almost daily.  

These numbers underscore the heft of Russia’s industrial manufacturing capacity and its sustained attempt to break Ukraine’s resistance. Russia is outproducing Europe and the US by a significant margin in a class of munitions that can deliver affordable strategic effects.  

Russia’s continued ability to sustain a low-cost, high-tempo, high-volume deep strike campaign has drained Kyiv’s air and missile defense, making it harder for defenders to identify and destroy the faster and more destructive cruise and ballistic missiles during combined attacks.  

While Ukrainian countermeasures against the Geran have significantly improved, with interception rates typically between 80–97%, hundreds of Gerans still manage to reach their targets every month. Even a small proportion of successful strikes, when distributed across energy grids, military sites, and civilian infrastructure, imposes real damage and accelerates wear on Ukraine’s defensive capacity. 

Early Geran-2s used a combination of an inertial navigation system and a basic four-element controlled reception pattern antenna (CRPA) to provide global satellite connectivity, which was effective at first but became vulnerable to Ukraine’s increasingly sophisticated jamming and spoofing techniques. The drones also lacked sensors, such as electro-optical cameras, and were inaccurate compared to Russian missiles.  

By contrast, late-2024 and 2025 iterations included a variety of features to increase performance in contested environments, including external cameras and multi-element Chinese or Russian CRPAs, significantly improving resilience to Ukrainian countermeasures. 

Russia also shifted from pre-loaded coordinate navigation to semi-manual control. Several Geran-2 “Y-series” drones carried Ukrainian SIM cards, telemetry units, and modems, enabling operators to manually adjust course during the terminal phase, although these developments were not without their problems, including signal delays and dependency on local Ukrainian networks. 

More recently, Gerans recovered by Ukraine have been found with Chinese mesh communication modems operating on various frequency bands alongside electro-optical cameras. Ukrainian specialists say these enable low-latency video transmission and “chain control,” providing communication links across multiple drones.  

This shift is tactically significant as it turns a salvo of UAVs from a “dumb” mass of projectiles into a distributed network capable of sustaining operator control deep into Ukrainian airspace, even amidst intense electronic warfare.  

The use of mesh connectivity also allows the operators to track the position of the drones and map the approximate location of Ukrainian air defense units as they are intercepted. 

The recovery of a Geran-2 equipped with an Nvidia Jetson Orin computer board and an infrared camera also pointed to experimentation with visual-based navigation or automated target recognition. This does not mean Russia has mastered real-time AI-driven targeting, but it shows that its engineers are constantly experimenting and Gerans may soon evolve into semi-autonomous strike assets with machine-assisted guidance.  

There are a range of warhead types used by the Geran family of UAVs. Alongside the original 50kg high-explosive-fragmentation payload, Moscow has employed thermobaric, incendiary-fragmentation, high-explosive, high-explosive airburst, and even submunition-dispersing variants. The most consequential upgrade, however, is a 90kg (200lb) warhead introduced in 2024, which combines a penetrator-shaped charge with a layer of steel balls to pierce fortified infrastructure and maximize human casualties. This diversification broadens the Geran’s targets, which now include defensive positions and tactical radars in addition to energy infrastructure and civilian housing, giving Moscow’s commanders new strike options.  

The jet-powered Geran-3 marks yet another design and capability shift. With a 3-meter (10ft) wingspan and takeoff weight of 370kg, it can achieve 370mph, roughly triple the speed of its propeller-driven predecessors. This compresses Ukrainian reaction time and complicates interception by gun-based systems or helicopters, which have been effective against propeller-driven variants. It also improves penetration on impact, maximizing the destructive effects of the warhead.  

However, turbojet engines use more fuel, resulting in shorter range, the use of launch sites closer to Ukraine to reach their targets, and reduced cruising speeds to improve their reach. These tradeoffs increase their vulnerability to Ukrainian interceptors and counterstrikes. Ukrainian defenders have already managed to intercept jet-powered Gerans with affordable interceptor drones, such as the $3,000 Wild Hornets’ Sting, demonstrating the potential of fast drone interceptors. As Ukraine ramps up the production of fast interceptor drones, Russia’s countermove has been the installation of rear-looking cameras on top of the Geran’s fuselage or nose that are supposed to alert the drone operator so that he can initiate evasive maneuvers. So far, the effectiveness of the technique appears to be limited. 

Moscow is experimenting with different roles for the Geran. A recently destroyed model carried a Soviet-era R-60 air-to-air missile, suggesting attempts to directly engage Ukrainian aircraft hunting the drones. It demonstrates Russia’s constant process of adaptation and search for new mission profiles. And its tactics have evolved alongside the technical upgrades. At first, the focus was on staggered low-altitude attacks on fixed infrastructure from Crimean launch sites, but accuracy was limited and strike routes were relatively easy for Ukrainian planners to anticipate.  

Then, increasingly effective electronic warfare, combined with tactical aviation and mobile fire groups, significantly decreased the effectiveness of Gerans between the second half of 2023 and the first half of 2024. 

To address these problems, Russia dramatically ramped up Geran production. It also shifted to simultaneous mass salvos, with Gerans and multiple decoys flying at higher altitudes and using maneuver tactics to evade interception. Furthermore, a selected number of Gerans fly in circular patterns and provide communication relay for the rest of the strike package through mesh radio networks, enabling the remote control of multiple drones. These large-scale converging attacks are often synchronized with cruise or ballistic missiles to saturate Ukrainian air defense and force it to redirect resources and use its interceptors prematurely.  

The Geran’s cost-effectiveness allows Russia to sustain continuous pressure on Ukraine’s air defenses while preserving high-end assets for selected overwhelming strikes. The introduction of the Geran-3 and employment of increasingly advanced features suggest the system will remain central to Russia’s attacks on strategic infrastructure. 

As Ukraine’s air defense stocks face growing pressure and Western military support is constrained by political disagreements, Russia’s ability to field thousands of Gerans per month is disproportionately influential in shaping the war through exhaustion and sustained infrastructure degradation.  

The mass production and integration of cheap drone interceptors — alongside other cost-effective and scalable countermeasures — should be a priority for both Ukraine and NATO allies. There also needs to be strict sanctions enforcement, together with direct targeting of the Geran’s component, production, and launch sites.

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By Federico Borsari. Federico Borsari is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and a cohort of the NATO 2030 Global Fellowship.   Article and pictures first time published on CEPA web page. Prepared for publication by volunteers from the Res Publica - The Center for Civil Resistance.