Russia is using high-speed drones and guided glide bombs powered by jet engines to strike Ukraine, leaving defenders with very little time to react.
Senior Ukrainian officials told Business Insider that Russian tactics appear to be evolving with the introduction of these jet-powered weapons, testing Kyiv’s response, but for now, they are being used in limited numbers.
“I believe the enemy is testing our defenses and our countermeasures against these new systems to assess whether mass production is worth pursuing,” said Lt. Col. Yurii Myronenko, Ukraine’s deputy minister of defense for innovation.
The Geran-3, a Russian drone modeled after Iran’s Shahed-238, first showed up in Ukraine early this year and has been involved in attacks over the past few months.
The long-range drone is equipped with a turbojet engine, allowing it to travel at speeds of up to 230 miles per hour. This drone is a more advanced version of the propeller-driven Geran-2, although both are designed to carry explosive warheads, dive at their targets, and detonate on impact.
Myronenko, a former drone unit commander, said that the jet-powered Shaheds have been used alongside propeller-driven strike and decoy drones in multiple large-scale Russian attacks this fall.
“For now, the enemy is employing them in limited numbers,” he said, though he noted that one recent attack featured only jet-powered Shaheds — as many as 10 of them — and no propeller-driven drones at all, pointing to a potential evolution in Russian attacks.
The Ukrainian military’s communications department told Business Insider that several large-scale Russian attacks have featured jet-powered drones, but only very few of them, explaining that what the country is seeing right now “cannot be called massive use.”
Mykhailo Fedorov, the first deputy prime minister of Ukraine and minister of digital transformation, suggested that Russia is struggling to mass-produce its jet-powered drones.
“It’s still a small-enough number,” he said, speaking through a translator. “They’re iterating, they’re testing, they’re changing their tactics.”
Russia’s defense ministry and its US embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its jet-powered weapons and their use in Ukraine.
Glide bombs with more range
The Ukrainian military said that Russia is also periodically using jet-powered guided glide bombs against Ukraine, but not in large numbers, similar to the Geran-3 drones.
“Isolated launches of guided glide bombs with an increased flight range are observed in various areas of the front,” the military said, without getting into specifics.
Glide bombs are dumb bombs equipped with special kits that turn them into precision-guided munitions. These weapons can be launched from Russian jets at a standoff range beyond the reach of Ukraine’s air defenses. They have small radar signatures, non-ballistic trajectories, and short flight times, making them notoriously difficult to intercept.
Reports began to emerge last month that Russia had been using glide bombs with turbojet engines to attack Ukraine. Myronenko described the situation as “complicated.”
“This significantly expands the geography of enemy attacks,” he explained. “We do have countermeasures against these bombs, but they do not always result in interception, and the longer the range, the greater the threat to civilians.”
The Ukrainian military said some Russian attacks have been intercepted by antiaircraft weapons, including missile systems, as well as jets and helicopters.
Electronic warfare also works in some cases, though Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency said in September that the Geran-3 was built with jamming-resistant technology.
Fedorov said that Ukraine is looking into jet-powered interceptor drones to respond to the Geran-3 threat, adding that this technology is in the research and development phase. Ukraine has heavily invested in interceptor drones as a cost-effective means of defending against propeller-driven strike drones.
The tradeoffs of weapons design
Russia’s growing use of jet-powered weapons is part of a “strategy to impose costs on Ukrainian air defenses,” said Patrycja Bazylczyk, an associate director and associate fellow with the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Propeller-driven drones can be destroyed by truck-mounted machine guns, as mobile Ukrainian air defense units have been doing for years, but these jet-powered drones, with their increased speed, make targeting and interception more difficult, she told Business Insider.
Meanwhile, the jet-powered glide bombs, with their extended range, allow Russian planes to strike from greater distances well beyond the reach of Ukraine’s air defenses, which are already struggling to counter glide bomb threats.
Jet-powered drones and bombs, however, aren’t without their issues.
“Weapons design involves many tradeoffs,” Bazylczyk explained. “Opting for a jet engine prioritizes speed, reducing defender reaction times. But it’ll cost you: these jet-powered Shaheds are pricier and have shorter range than propeller-powered counterparts.”
Myronenko said Russia might be constrained in its ability to purchase the jet engines, which are more expensive and less readily available. He said Moscow’s ability to acquire the technology depends on the willingness of other countries to supply it.
While Ukraine has confirmed an overall uptick in the use of Russian jet-powered weapons, their impact on the battlefield and beyond remains to be seen, especially if the warhead size remains the same.
“Slapping a jet engine on a Shahed does not really change the weapon’s effect,” Bazylczyk said. “Just because you strap a motor to a bicycle doesn’t make it a Harley—it’s just an electric bike.”
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