\n<\/p>\n
Ukrainian reports are starting to document the use of Russia’s new jet-propelled Shahed drones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
One version, unofficially dubbed the Geran-3, is said to fly up to 500 miles per hour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
Such speeds would pose key problems for Ukraine’s air defenses if jet drones are launched en masse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
More signs are emerging that Russia is launching a new exploding drone said to fly much faster than its current Shaheds.<\/p>\n
Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported on Wednesday that it had encountered jet-powered attack drones while defending its airspace the night before.<\/p>\n
“A notable feature of the night attack was the use of up to eight jet-powered UAVs in the northern direction,” it wrote in a regular update.<\/p>\n
The announcement marks one of the first official reports of Ukraine’s forces encountering the new loitering munition in combat.<\/p>\n
In total, the Air Force Command counted 78 Shahed attack drones <\/a>launched on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The statement added that 51 drones were shot down or disabled by electronic warfare, interceptor drones, anti-air missiles, and mobile fire groups<\/a>, which typically use truck-mounted machine guns.<\/p>\n The Ukrainian air force did not specify if any jet-propelled drones were shot down.<\/p>\n “There were 27 drone impacts recorded at 7 locations, and falling debris from downed drones at 2 locations,” Air Force Command wrote.<\/p>\n On Thursday, a Ukrainian Telegram channel that monitors the flight paths of Russian drones also wrote that it recorded launches of jet-propelled drones.<\/p>\n “On the map we’ve drawn for you, you can see the movement of cruise missiles, jet-powered Shaheds, and regular strike\/decoy UAVs,” it wrote. While not an official government channel, it’s widely followed in Ukraine for city-specific alerts on incoming drones.<\/p>\n Russian jet-propelled drones are believed to be closely modeled after Iran’s Shahed-238<\/a>, an upgraded long-range loitering munition Tehran unveiled in November.<\/p>\n Moscow has not officially detailed its own version of the new weapon, but Ukraine’s intelligence and Western analysts have reported that it’s likely building a model with the Tolou\u201110\/13 jet engine to vastly increase the drone’s speed.<\/p>\n Open-source intelligence sources said as early as January that Ukraine may have shot down at least one Shahed-238-type drone, indicating limited Russian use. In June, images published by Ukrainian Telegram channels appeared to show destroyed fragments of such drones in the country.<\/p>\n In both earlier reports and the Air Force Command’s update on Wednesday, it’s unclear if these were prototypes or finalized drones.<\/p>\n But if deployed en masse against Ukraine, the new upgraded drone could pose a major problem for Kyiv’s air defenses.<\/p>\n The Shahed-238 is said to be much faster than the Shahed-136, which is locally produced in Russia as the Geran-2 \u2014 the Kremlin’s main attack drone against Ukraine.<\/p>\n While the Shahed-136 is known to fly at top speeds of 115 mph, a Russian general told state media in December that the Shahed-238 could fly as fast as 500 mph. Extended independent analyses on the drone’s still aren’t publicly available, and it’s possible that the munition<\/a> can only fly that fast while diving.<\/p>\n At such speed, however, the jet-powered drone would be nearly as fast as a cruise missile.<\/p>\n That would be a nearly impossible target for Ukraine’s mobile fire groups, or the vehicle-mounted machine gun crews it’s relied on to fight off Shahed-136s.<\/p>\n This year, mobile fire groups are already being overwhelmed by the sheer number of Russian Shahed-136s launched every night. To shore up the gap, Ukraine has started prioritizing interceptor drones<\/a>, which also risk being rendered obsolete if jet-powered Shaheds become mainstream.<\/p>\nA major problem for Ukraine’s air defenses<\/h2>\n