Russia Will Not Run Out Of Gerans

In the middle of 2022 a shadowy arms deal between Moscow and Tehran covered sizable deliveries for one-way attack (OWA) drones, or “droniv-kamikadze” as Ukrainians refer to them, that became terror weapons in every sense. Labeled the Geran-1 or Geran-2 in Cyrillic but known as the Shahed-131/136 after its Iranian design these propeller-driven delta wing missiles have menaced Ukrainian cities for the past nine months rather than battlefield targets–a distinction for Russian-made Lancets, which are assembled by Kalashnikov and Zala Aero. Although there have been many bad takes about the Gerans/Shaheds, such as claims their inventory is depleted, it’s now a matter of fact that attacks can be expected for months on end without respite.

The past two weeks have seen an unusually high number of Geran/Shahed attacks on Ukrainian cities compared to attacks from April. According to Ukrainian officials the drones are launched from at least two locations: Bryansk Oblast in the northeast and Krasnodar Krai, along the Azov coast, in the south. Geran/Shahed launches are also suspected from Russian-occupied Kherson. From May 1 to 5 a total of 50 Gerans/Shaheds were launched against Ukraine and 41 intercepted with the majority neutralized near Kyiv. On May 6 the Ukrainian Air Force acknowledged their SAM batteries around the capital had intercepted a Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile near Kyiv on May 4 and its wreckage was shown to the public.

While success against a Russian-made Kinzhal was celebrated in the news and social media the Gerans/Shaheds kept pouring in throughout the following week. It’s claimed a single Shahed-136 has a flight range of 1,500 kilometers but judging by the evidence stretching back nine months no target has been more than 700 km away from a possible launch site in Bryansk or Krasnodar Krai. Gerans/Shaheds aren’t packed in truck containers either and are very easy to prepare one at a time from a static launcher assembled on the ground. (This is common among Iranian one-way attack drones such as the Arash.)

On May 13, a Friday, the city of Khmelnytskyi was rocked by large explosions a few hours before sunrise. These are just the latest destructive attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, the locations in Khmelnytskyi are claimed to be storage sites, but physical evidence–whether shared as footage or images–connecting these to Gerans/Shaheds rather than cruise missiles is unavailable. It should be noted Khmelnystkyi is in western Ukraine and located 520 km from the Russian border to the northeast and 500 km from Russian-occupied Kherson. As of the weekend the Ukrainian Air Force, the branch responsible for reporting air defense activities since March, has logged 108 Geran/Shahed “kills.” This is the highest number yet for 2023 and took place over a period of just 14 days.

Below are tables for the Ukrainian Air Force’s air defense activities versus Gerans/Shaheds in the past two months. Figures are taken from the branch’s own news reports and corroborated with news published by Ukrainian media. Readers can find a simple tabulation of all Geran/Shahed shootdowns here.