The new Russian Geran-5 drones, powered by a jet engine, demonstrate that the Kremlin’s army is also capable of innovation. One of them hit the headquarters of the Ukrainian Security Service, the first direct drone attack on a government building in Kiev. Another nearly hit the plane of President Volodimir Zelenski as he was about to take off from Moldova. Hundreds of other drones have set fire to warehouses and shut down Ukraine’s ports. The new drones fly at speeds and altitudes similar to cruise missiles, writes Financial Times.
The new Russian jet drones Geran-4 and Geran-5 have been bombing Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, evading air defense at a much faster pace than their propeller predecessors, posing a new major threat.
This is a striking change for an army whose progress on the battlefield since Vladimir Putin’s invasion in 2022 has come with huge human costs and large losses of Soviet-era equipment. Although Ukraine has excelled in indigenous defense technological innovation, the new drones show that Russia can also develop, perfect, and deploy new weapons on a large scale, experts say.
“They have invested all their effort, resources, money, and talent into this system. They constantly improve it and test it on the battlefield to bring this technology to perfection,” said Kateryna Bondar, senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The almost continuous launches of jet drones starting from August 27 have brought Kiev closer to the daily reality of the front-line cities, with daytime attacks that disrupt ordinary life, alongside massive nocturnal barrages.
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