Kamikaze Drones: Putin’s Next Big Weapon to Strike Ukraine? On Oct. 11, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a sobering message to the nation. His video address came a day after Russia launched missile and drone attacks that struck civilian areas and energy infrastructure in most major Ukrainian cities, particularly Kyiv.
Shahed-136. Image Credit: Screenshot.
He warned that unoccupied Ukrainian cities were likely to come under more attacks in the coming weeks and months. In particular, he claimed, “Russia has ordered 2,400 Iranian Shaheds alone—according to our intelligence.”
Though Russia operates multiple types of Iranian Shahed drones, this was certainly a reference to the Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, designed to crash into distant targets and explode. In Russian military service, it is called the Geran-2. Russia has also used some Shahed-131s, a smaller, older model.
If Zelensky’s statement is accurate, it seems likely Russia hopes to use Shaheds to sustain strategic attacks on Ukrainian cities — a measure Russian ultranationalists have long been calling for.
Shahed-136s launched from Belarus, reportedly in tandem with reusable armed drones, were used in the Oct. 10 onslaught. Intelligence reports already claim Russia deployed another 32 Shahed-136 Iranian drones to Belarus, with eight more en route.
Moscow’s reported intention to invest in more kamikaze drones is significant because the Kremlin used up the better part of its modern missile arsenal by the end of the summer, forcing it to sharply diminish the rate of attacks this fall and increasingly use outdated anti-air and anti-ship missiles for land attacks. Russia can only build new long-range missiles slowly. Each of them costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
While the 84 missiles Russia lobbed at Ukrainian cities on Oct. 10 were shocking, the Kremlin cannot keep this up for long. Unfortunately, the Shahed-136 may cost as little as $20,000 dollars each, and according to some claims, may be manufacturable in large volumes on a daily basis.
Cheap Kamikaze Drones: a Strategic Weapon?
The delta-wing Shahed-136 weighs 440 pounds and is propelled by a 50-horsepower engine turning a pusher propeller. Five can be rocket-boosted into the sky using a canvas-shrouded rack on a truck. The Iranian weapon is even more like a missile than a typical kamikaze drone, because it lacks a camera and isn’t remotely piloted, though it can be re-targeted midflight. Rather, after using a rocket booster for takeoff, it flies towards pre-designated coordinates a few hundred miles away using satellite navigation like GPS or Russia’s GLONASS.
Satellite navigation can achieve high precision, as Iran demonstrated in a propaganda video simulating an attack on an Israeli nuclear reactor, but it can be disrupted by appropriately tuned jammers. For backup, though, the Shahed can use its low-grade inertial navigation system to stay roughly on course until satellite signals are reacquired. Additionally, a captured Shahed-131 was found to incorporate foreign components designed to defeat GPS spoofing, which tricks GPS systems by transmitting the wrong coordinates.
Russia’s initial strikes with the Shahed-136 in September were aimed at battlefield targets in the Kharkiv region during a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive there. A Ukrainian commander told the Wall Street Journal the drones were effective, knocking out four artillery systems (two of them armored) and two armored personnel carriers. Some may have involved a variant with a nose-mounted heat seeker to aid interception of moving targets.
But starting Sept. 20, Russia began using its Geran-2s differently for strategic attacks on cities in southern Ukraine, particularly Odesa and Mykolaiv, on one occasion blasting a port administration building.
The Shahed-136 is far from the perfect weapon. It’s noisy, not that difficult to spot, and slow enough that it’s vulnerable to anything that can shoot at things in the sky, including small arms and rapid-firing flak cannons. After the initial surprise of their introduction, Ukraine downed dozens before they could hit their target.
Furthermore, a typical Russian Kh-101 or Kalibr cruise missile has a warhead over ten times heavier than the Shahed’s 79 pounds of explosives. And those missiles have greater resilience to GPS jamming, and therefore are more accurate under GPS-denial conditions.
The problem is that when Russia launches ten kamikaze drones, and Ukrainian defenses down 4 to 7 of them as often reportedly happens, that leaves several to slam into their targets. And if Shaheds truly do cost as little as $20,000 each, that’s far more sustainable than expending turbojet-powered cruise missiles which may cost $500,000 each, while also sustaining substantial losses to Ukrainian defenses. Indeed, the Shahed could be useful by simply absorbing Ukrainian defensive fire to allow more cruise missiles to penetrate.
Now, this quantity-over-quality logic has limitations. Just because they’re cheap doesn’t mean Russia can automatically acquire as many as it can pay for and get them as soon as it wants them. It must buy them from Iran, which poses complications. Tehran may fear the sales have become too politically sensitive, or prioritize rebuilding its own stockpiles, and so forth.
A Russian social media account associated with drone operations claims without confirmation that Russia will build Shahed-136s under license domestically. To be fair, even without permission Russia could reverse-engineer the Shahed-136 and develop its own model, just as it developed the Forepost-R drone based on IAI Searcher IIs bought from Israel.
Return of the Vengeance Weapons
If true (and such rumors should be consumed skeptically) then Russia might be able to sustain kamikaze drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, even if that bombardment wouldn’t be accurate. The aim would be to disrupt daily life and terrorize inhabitants into fleeing cities, thereby further damaging the economy and ostensibly pressuring Zelensky to become more pliable to Russian demands.
In reality, past strategic bombing campaigns, often using far more destructive means, had little success breaking civilian morale. The threat posed by the Shahed arguably echoes the V-1 ‘Buzzbombs’ launched at the UK and Belgium by Nazi Germany near the end of World War II. This pulse-jet propelled missile was faster and had a much larger warhead, but it was highly inaccurate. It could only be used to randomly rain death on population centers, particularly London.
The Nazis fired 12,000 of these so-called ‘Vengeance’ weapons, killing more than 6,000 Londoners and driving over a million from their homes. The Allies devoted considerable resources to countering V-1s and eventually became pretty efficient at it – though V-1s did create political pressure to capture Nazi-occupied territory more rapidly.
Ultimately, Hitler wasted huge resources building 30,000 revenge missiles to kill thousands of non-combatants, and all he got for it was encouraging the Allies to finish off his fascist empire faster.
Directing combat resources away from military targets to killing civilians earlier proved a strategic error in the Battle of Britain. Now, some Russian military commentators have expressed concern that the Kremlin’s dedication of drones to strategic attacks comes at expense of their far more militarily useful application of hunting Ukraine’s Western-supplied artillery, particularly HIMARS rocket systems.
If Russia seeks to use drones to sustain strategic attacks, the results may be similar. They will kill and injure civilians, traumatize many more, and destroy homes, workplaces and occasionally infrastructure. But they won’t win battles.
Yes, Kyiv will (and should) expend resources to mitigate the threat. That could include deploying more air defense radars, rapid-firing point defense autocannons and MANPADS around population centers, though such short-range systems can’t protect everywhere. More promisingly, fast-reacting satellite-navigation jammers may severely degrade Shahed attacks, even if they still can cause damage falling off target.
Despite the expenses Kyiv will incur, Russian strategic attacks will likely have little impact on battlefield operations, where prospects look poor for Russia at present. Strategic strikes also risk alienating Moscow from the tolerant graces of India and China, and could spur more international assistance to Ukraine, particularly medium-range air defense weapons like NASAMS.
In short, sustained kamikaze drones bashing Ukrainian cities are not a winning strategy – but unfortunately, they do threaten to cause more destruction and suffering to the Ukrainian people.
Sébastien Roblin writes on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com, War is Boring and 19FortyFive, where he is Defense-in-Depth editor. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.
Froike
October 12, 2022 at 10:44 am
Great opportunity for NATO to test Anti Drone Technology in Ukraine.
I don’t know if it’s True, but I read that a Ukrainian Drone was in Russian Territory and went undetected for quite a long time.
I think they sent a clear message to Putin.
Goran
October 12, 2022 at 11:20 am
I am just so confused by this evident lack of wisdom among Russian elites, I don’t understand how it is possible for them to think that Putin can come out of this on top. Seizing the Hostomel Airport and that column heading towards Kyiv marked the high point of his campaign, yet it turned into an ongoing debacle and as of now, the only unknown is how much more will Russia lose (in economy, demography, military capabilities, and so on). Yes, Ukrainians are bleeding too, but the choice they have is simple; remain a vassal state to an oligarch and a warlord led society or turn to the West and start applying the EU standards in healthcare, education, finances and so on. They’ve made their choice, they will not let Putin tell them what they can and cannot do, and no amount of clunky contraptions Putin throws at them will not affect that choice. On the contrary.
Roger Bacon
October 12, 2022 at 11:31 am
Literally a toy drone carrying a length of wire could fly into these things and foul their prop and bring them down. They don’t look much bigger than my Long-EZ homebuilt airplane and I worried about drone strikes when drones started coming on the market a decade ago.
Gary Jacobs
October 12, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Goran,
Russia is an ethno supremacist terrorist and imperialist state. Iran is a religious supremacist terrorist and imperialist state. They both rely on propaganda and brainwashing to cover up for their mistakes with their own people. The two approaches are so close that it makes it easy for them to work together.
As a Jew whose family and friends have suffered from -among other atrocities- Russian pogroms, AND Iranian sponsored terrorism I have studied both of these countries for decades.
I can tell you that they use propaganda and spin to excuse away their losses so that they can continue to terrorize their victims another day… with the ultimate belief that through sheer will and ego of being [in their twisted minds] inherently superior to their enemies…eventually they will prevail. There is almost no loss that cant be spun into a challenge that needs to be, and can be, overcome.
As well, there is no depths to which they will not sink to degrade the humanity of their enemies so they can excuse all manner of atrocities they commit against unarmed civilians simply for being Jewish, or Ukrainian, or sometimes both.
There is almost no world in which they will accept the equality of those they seek to rule or destroy in order to live in peace.
At this point it is up to the allies of Ukraine to supply it with enough weapons to both defend its population AND continue rolling back the Russians on the battlefield.
In the last 48hours, 4 more HIMARS arrived from the US, France promised 3 of their M270 versions [which fires the same munitions as HIMARS with 2 pods of six missiles at a time instead of 1 pod for HIMARS.] Germany and as I recall the UK also promised more of the same.
All toll Ukraine should have close to 50 HIMARS equivalent including the M270s within the next couple of weeks. With 18 more HIMARS on longer term order through Lockheed Martin. I believe those should start arriving in the 6 months, with all delivered within 2 years.
There’s a lot more kit and ammo on the way as well. Especially missile and drone defenses.
As well, Look for the next phase of Ukrainian counter offensives, and Russian losses, to begin soon. That said, now that Russia forces are compressed into smaller areas, there may be tougher fighting ahead. But the Ukrainians are in good position to continue with a series of new victories.
Bottom line: All Russia has done with this war is to prove how impotent it is on the battlefield. As well as make many of Ukraine’s biggest backers double down and speed up delivery of weapons. Most of these Iranian drones will end up as target practise for Ukraine as they continue to push Russia out of their country.
403Forbidden
October 12, 2022 at 12:26 pm
Looks like zekenskiyy is feeding world with CIA agitprop.
Why does the neo-nazi decline to explain or talk about the use of vehicle bombs against the opposing side by ukros.
It isn’t just the recent bridge bombing, but during the war against Donbass separatives, from 2015 onwards, ukros forces aided by CIA operatives successfully conducted car explosions in the breakaway regions.
Now, he’s talking about thousands of Iranian drones.
Perhaps, next he would be talking about Iran getting thousands of nukes from Russia.
Zelenskiyy needs to think what would eventually happen to ukraine if the fighting doesn’t stop now while he’s too busy continuing his call to the west for more latest and greatest weapons.
L'amateur d'aéroplanes
October 12, 2022 at 12:36 pm
The 103rd armored plant near Chita is modernizing about 800 T-62 tanks over the course of three years. Tanks of 60 years…
Tamerlane
October 12, 2022 at 3:06 pm
Russia should order way more than that. Only 2,400? They must be going soft, they should order 10,000.
Goran:
The Russian elites of all ideological stripes understand and believe that Ukraine within NATO is an existential threat to Russia, so they quite rationally, support whatever is necessary to prevent this from occurring. Russia and its elites don’t agree with you that they must lose this war and that they ought to meekly accept the destruction of Russia and its ability for self defense. Russia and its elites won’t accept becoming a vassal state to NATO/the U.S., and they’ll escalate to whatever level is necessary to prevent their dismemberment and destruction. I’m not sure why you’re so confused here. This has been self evident for 20 years.
Gary:
As usual, your personal animus governs you. Emotions disarrange valuations, and your again repeated “Russo delenda eat” pronouncements are devoid of deductive reasoning.
Russia is a nationalist state, which has been considerably less imperialistic than the United States over the past 25 years. You are the one here who has been spouting Ukrainian propaganda, excusing away Ukrainian failures and the unsustainable nature of their growing debacle—even with the vastness of American military might and direction openly assisting them and using them as a client state/vassal state/proxy state. How many million more Ukrainians are you willing to see die to see your personal vendetta satiated?
“At this point it is up to the allies of Ukraine to supply it with enough weapons to both defend its population AND continue rolling back the Russians on the battlefield.”
Who are these “allies”? The United States is not the ally of Ukraine, nor is Ukraine an ally of NATO? Who are these allies? When did the U.S. Senate ratify a treaty making Ukraine our American ally? I know you don’t give two fs about our constitution’s restraints on an executive unilaterally deciding to take the country into a war with a nuclear superpower without congressional consent or action, but surely even you know what is required to make another country an ally?
As well, the worse Russia does in the face of American engineered Ukrainian counter offensives, the greater the odds of escalation. The Russians cannot afford to lose, for if they lose they lose the very defensibility of Russia itself and its maintenance as a power independent of vassalage. The greater American intervention, the greater the likelihood of escalation, and the closer to Russian borders the war goes, the higher the likelihood of Russian responses to America’s undeclared war.
Gary Jacobs
October 12, 2022 at 4:23 pm
Tamerlane,
As usual your arrogance governs you, and you continue to make demonstrably false statements that are quite easily proven false.
The US has not tried to Annex any territory in roughly 100 years. That era is far beyond over. Russia is on its 3rd try since 2008 when they invaded Georgia. And this time they were, at the very minimum, trying to connect Russia through Southern Ukraine to Transnistria in Moldova… where Russia also has troops.
You pretending the wars involving the US in the last 25 years is in anyway comparable to that is absurd on its face. This level of absurdity makes you not much better than the other Putinista trolls on this site.
As usual, I could go point by point deconstructing every phony statement you make… but for now I digress.
Lawrence R Smith
October 12, 2022 at 4:45 pm
ARE the GPS signals line of sight to an antenna on top of the drone? if so then UKR must have airborne jammers?
Tamerlane
October 12, 2022 at 5:36 pm
Gary, unfortunately in your repeated proclamation of your own wisdom you show yourself a fool. It’s you, not me who has been proven thus far—over in excess of six (6) months to be wrong. You have yet to prove a single point of mine false, despite your trollish anti-American agiprop.
Unlike you, I have fought in several of the last 20 years’ wars for “regime change”—seeking to install pro-American client states by force; “nation building”—seeking to transpose what I’m sure you hate here in the United States—our constitutionally limited form of government—onto another people in some far off land; and of course “liberal intervention”, akin to our seizing and through a manufactured referendum, the division of another country against their will (in Yugoslavia)… moreover, sans the western manufactured “referendum” and “recognition”, we did this as well in Libya. Our own conduct informed Russia’s action here, for better or ill, and your inability ever even for strategically beneficial reasons to transpose yourself into another’s position reveals you to be the most bigoted of the swarm of ignoramuses here. You are frankly, the Triton of the minnows.
As usual, you seek to let in the crows to peck the American eagles, advocating for weakening our American position to accomplish your personal bigoted vendetta.
Serhio
October 13, 2022 at 1:25 am
Gary Jacobs
“As well, Look for the next phase of Ukrainian counter offensives, and Russian losses, to begin soon. That said, now that Russia forces are compressed into smaller areas, there may be tougher fighting ahead. But the Ukrainians are in good position to continue with a series of new victories.”
You are poorly versed in Russians and even worse in military matters. Maybe you should comment on articles about pink ponies? A few days ago, when I wrote that Russian troops would soon send Ukraine to the Stone Age, destroying their energy and infrastructure, you objected to me that the Russians do not have missiles for this and they will not be able to cause significant damage to the Ukrainian energy system. There are many good hunters among the Russians. And a good hunter will not go hunting a predatory beast with one cartridge.
“In the last 48hours, 4 more HIMARS arrived from the US, France promised 3 of their M270 versions [which fires the same munitions as HIMARS with 2 pods of six missiles at a time instead of 1 pod for HIMARS.] Germany and as I recall the UK also promised more of the same.
All tell Ukraine should have close to 50 HIMARS equivalent including the M270s within the next couple of weeks. With 18 more HIMARS on longer term order through Lockheed Martin. I believe there should start arriving in the 6 months, with all delivered within 2 years.”
Ukraine does not have so much time to wait for the promised HIMARS for 2 years. In order to have a significant impact on the fighting, there must be at least 300 such installations on the front more than 1000 km. Without a reliable air defense system, the existing HIMARS will be destroyed by Russian drones like partridges. And those that are being delivered at the moment have a great chance of not getting to the front and being destroyed on the way.
What are we seeing now? Ukraine tried to shell the Russian border town of Belgorod. Several American AGM-88 HARM missiles, each of which, depending on the modification, costs from 300 thousand to 1 million dollars, were shot down on approach to Belgorod. And these missiles are designed to defeat enemy air defense elements. That is, the AGM-88 HARM must overcome air defense. And (so the manufacturer claims) it showed good effectiveness against American air defense. But the AGM-88 HARM could not overcome the Russian air defense. And this is very bad news for American arms suppliers. Because all the armies of the world are watching this conflict. And those who bought in the United States are sad now – it turns out that a very expensive American missile is useless if the enemy has a Russian air defense system in service. This is a rather painful blow to the reputation of the American military-industrial complex. It is unlikely that the Pentagon, delivering these missiles, expected that the result of their use would be such a spectacular advertisement for Russian air defense systems.
TheDon
October 13, 2022 at 3:24 am
Oh just use a couple reprogrammed to take out the iranian factory.
MortenHJ
October 13, 2022 at 8:39 am
Any drones or rockets sent from Belarus territory into Ukraine should be answered with similar from Ukraine into Belarus territory.
Belarus can’t blame others (Russia).
Gary Jacobs
October 13, 2022 at 10:35 am
Serhio,
The devil does deserve his due. The targeting of civilian energy infrastructure as well as children’s playgrounds, schools, and pedestrian bridges is a terrorist depth to which Russia was expected to sink to…and of course they would give it a go. And within 24 hours many of the large missile impact sites in the middle of major streets in Ukraine where Russia tried to kill civilians during rush hour have already been filled in and paved over, and in some [but not all] cases the energy has already been restored to cities.
For air defense, I used Germany’s foot dragging as an example, but the US has also been dragging its feet on NASAM. And now that Russia has put on full display the depths of its terrorist tendencies to use long range missiles to target civilians with zero military purpose at all, two NASAMs are now set to arrive shortly, and donations of missiles for the system are likely to begin pouring in.
NASAMS’ primary armament is the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile [AMRAAM]. The exact same missile used around the world by fighter aircraft in air-to-air applications. It does not require a special AMRAAM variant or major modifications to existing missiles: NASAMS feeds off the same missile stocks as the jets.
This is an absolutely critical advantage. This means NATO alone, which sits on an inventory of many thousands of AMRAAMs, can provide Ukraine with the ammo it needs to maximize the system’s impact.
By contrast, Russia sent close to 100 missiles in one day, and about 30 the next. Even their own ultra nationalist Military blogger community that has been cheering this blatant act of terror knows that unless Russia can sustain the 100 missile per day barrage volume, then it’s basically all for show…and Russia is still as doomed to fail in Ukraine as they were before they launched those missiles.
As well, the Ukrainian forces are set receive an offense+defense counter-air and surface-to-surface precision-guided missile system that they can use from the back of a pickup truck, an SUV or a trailer: the Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment [VAMPIRE] system. The kit combines a four-tube rocket launcher, a sensor ball on a telescoping mast and a fire-control tablet. These can work with Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System [APKWS] missiles or other laser-guided munitions. APKWS is a laser-guided Hydra 70mm rocket system that costs only $25k per rocket, and will be perfect to take down cheap Iranian drones. The US alone has thousands upon thousands of Hydra rockets.
France, Poland, and others are also stepping up with sending Ukraine air defense systems. And Israel has reportedly stopped being cowed by Russian S400 threats from Syria against civilian aircraft, and the 150,000 Jews Russia is basically holding hostage in Russia…and now Israel is reportedly providing anti-drone intel and tech to Ukraine. I’ve always suspected Zelensky’s complaints about Israel were likely a red herring, and Israel has been secretly providing assistance during the war.
Bottom line: all Russia has done with this war is to awaken the sleeping giant of western democracy and industrial might to rally against it. You would be wise to prepare yourself for future Russian losses.
Ross
October 13, 2022 at 4:49 pm
Request to the Russian trolls. When you post, can you at least make a coherent argument? You guys make zero sense. No wonder the Russian battle plan makes no sense and has failed. Russians can’t even troll in a coherent manner.
Serhio
October 13, 2022 at 10:12 pm
“Gary Jacobs
The targeting of civilian energy infrastructure as well as children’s playgrounds, schools, and pedestrian bridges is a terrorist depth to which Russia was expected to sink to…and of course they would give it a go. And within 24 hours many of the large missile impact sites in the middle of major streets in Ukraine where Russia tried to kill civilians during rush hour have already been filled in and paved over, and in some [but not all] cases the energy has already been restored to cities.”
What do I see in your words? The usual propaganda: to tell part of the truth, but to keep silent about the other part. Even Zelensky, when he spoke after the first day of massive strikes, said that 10 civilians were killed. This means that the Russians did not strike at the civilian population, but struck precisely at the infrastructure. The debris of Ukrainian missiles fell on civilians, with which they tried to shoot down Russian drones and missiles. Eyewitnesses collected a lot of characteristic fragments, the shape of which indicates that these are fragments of old air defense missiles that are no longer in service with Russia, but are still used in Ukraine. All this is posted for everyone to see on YouTube. Anyone who wants to see will be able to see. All Western newspapers have circled photos of two old men from Kiev with their heads wrapped in bloody bandages as proof of the brutality of the Russians. However, a few hours later, on the same YouTube, eyewitnesses posted a video about how these shots were shot, from which it follows that this is a fake production. That’s how propagandists like you spin myths about the barbarity of Russians.
Transport and energy infrastructure are not peaceful goals, but primarily military ones. Look at how the US Army behaved when it invaded, for example, Serbia and Iraq. They bombed everything they could. Russians are just angels compared to the USA.
” And now that Russia has put on full display the depths of its terrorist tendencies to use long range missiles to target civilians with zero military purpose at all, two NASAMs are now set to arrive shortly, and donations of missiles for the system are likely to begin pouring in.”
Two installations will not be able to help cover the entire front line. The maximum that they will be able to do is to protect the command posts from which American and British generals are directing the war. But for such points, the Russians have hypersonic missiles that no Western system can intercept. If suddenly a miracle happens and the West decides (and can it?) to supply so much air defense to close the entire front will mean only one thing: the Russians will destroy everything they are going to destroy before these systems are delivered. Several billion more will be thrown to the wind. The Germans promised to deliver one IRIS-T installation and promised several more within two years. Who said that in two years there will be such a state “Ukraine”? It’s more like Ukraine is being used as a testing ground for German, American and British weapons. There simply aren’t enough weapons in the West to fight the Russians directly.