Feb 01, 202
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As their grueling war of attrition enters its fourth year, both Russia and Ukraine are conducting strategic strike campaigns to destroy targets of economic and military value. Ukraine’s approach relies on long-range strike drones that accurately target oil refineries, rail nodes, and other infrastructure deep inside Russia. In contrast, Russia is using a more brute-force strategy, launching large numbers of drones, glide bombs, and missiles to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Central to the Russian effort is the Geran drone, which is commonly referred to as the Shahed after the Iranian design on which it is based.
The Geran is a large loitering munition with a range of up to 2,000 km and a payload of approximately 40 kg of high explosives. The slow-moving, low-flying drone destroys its target by flying into it and detonating its payload. Early variants had an estimated price of around $35,000 per drone, allowing Russia to field them in large numbers. However, the drone has undergone numerous upgrades to stay ahead of Ukrainian countermeasures. As a result, the system is no longer the cost-effective weapon it was originally intended to be. Meanwhile, Ukrainian countermeasures have become both effective and substantially cheaper, shifting the economic balance of this aspect of the conflict.
Early Russian Upgrades To The Geran
When first introduced in late 2022, the Geran proved highly effective, as Ukrainian air defenses were optimized for small numbers of cruise missiles and aircraft rather than large volumes of slow, low-flying loitering munitions. At the time, Russian forces routinely launched Gerans in coordinated waves, with a significant percentage reaching their targets.
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This effectiveness declined sharply in 2023 as Ukraine began targeting the drones with electronic warfare systems. Ukrainian forces increasingly relied on GPS jamming and spoofing systems positioned around key cities and critical infrastructure. These systems disrupted the Gerans’ satellite navigation, causing the drones to drift off course. The remaining drones were then engaged by ground-based air defense systems. Throughout 2024, Ukrainian officials reported interception or neutralization rates exceeding 90 percent in many regions, with some months seeing only a handful of drones reach their targets. Regardless, this approach was expensive for Ukraine. Electronic warfare and ground-based air defense systems were costly to field and became priority targets for Russian strikes.
Subsequently, Russia introduced a series of upgrades intended to restore navigational reliability. One of the most significant was the incorporation of the Kometa-M satellite navigation module, a hardened GPS receiver designed to resist jamming and spoofing. This module uses multi-band reception, improved signal filtering, and directional antennas to distinguish legitimate satellite signals from spoofed data. The first iteration employed four additional antennas, later increased to eight, and recently to sixteen. These upgrades significantly increased the cost of the platform, with the Kometa-M module reportedly costing roughly as much as the rest of the drone combined.
In parallel, Russia modified some Geran variants to allow for remote operation. In these cases, if the drone lost its navigation feed, an operator could take over and visually guide it to the target. Control is transmitted via a mesh radio network or satellite communications. These modifications required additional components, including cameras, transceivers, and more advanced flight-control systems, further increasing the cost of the platform.
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Ukrainian Interceptor Drones And Recent Russian Upgrades To The Geran
With these upgrades, the Gerans became more capable at penetrating Ukrainian electronic-warfare defenses. As a result, Ukraine expanded its network of kinetic defenses, incorporating additional surface-to-air missile systems and manned aircraft employing cannons. These measures proved effective but were expensive, as surface-to-air missiles and fighter sorties cost more than the drones they intercepted. For example, a Stinger MANPADS costs approximately $100,000, more than double the price of an upgraded Geran.
Russia started launching Gerans in larger quantities to further overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses, deploying over 5,000 of these drones in December 2025. They also continued to upgrade the Geran, adding new features to increase the probability of hitting their targets. Russian forces began integrating cheaper decoy drones, known as Gerberas, alongside Gerans to numerically overwhelm Ukrainian kinetic defenses. Russia also reportedly added cameras and computer-vision systems, enabling some drones to attempt evasive maneuvers or identify and target air-defense systems. In a limited number of cases, Gerans have even been observed carrying air-to-surface missiles intended to engage those defenses directly.
More recently, Ukraine has found interceptor drones to be highly effective against Gerans. These small systems, such as the Sting produced by Wild Hornets, are launched and use computer-aided navigation to lock onto incoming Gerans. They then collide with the target and detonate, destroying both drones. Multiple companies are developing interceptor drones with a range of sensor packages. Brave1, a Ukrainian government defense innovation platform, recently posted the cost of different Wild Hornets interceptor drone models, with prices ranging from approximately $1,400 for a variant equipped with an analog daytime camera to about $2,400 for a version fitted with a digital thermal camera. Even at the high end, these interceptors are significantly cheaper than Gerans, particularly upgraded variants.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
These interceptor drones have created significant challenges for the Geran. Russia has attempted several countermeasures, including fitting some Gerans with rear-facing cameras that allow an operator or autonomous system to detect an incoming interceptor. These efforts have generally been unsuccessful. As a result, Russia has increasingly shifted to operator-controlled Gerans flying at very low altitudes to avoid Ukrainian radar detection, reducing the time available for Ukraine to launch interceptor drones. However, this tactic has also had limited success, as low-altitude flight makes the drones more susceptible to visual detection and engagement by other short-range air defense measures.
The Future Of The Geran And The Implications For The War
The primary purpose of the Geran was to saturate Ukrainian air defense networks, creating gaps that would allow more capable Russian strike systems to reach high-value targets. A secondary objective was economic, forcing Ukraine to expend costly resources and expose expensive air defense systems to destroy the inexpensive drones. Ukraine has largely overturned this logic through the widespread adoption of interceptor drones, which has shifted the cost exchange decisively in Kyiv’s favor. As Russia has layered increasingly expensive upgrades onto the Geran to counter Ukrainian defenses, Ukraine has responded with a simpler and far cheaper means of defeating it.
As seen throughout the war with respect to drone and counter-drone technology, both sides will continue to adapt and refine their systems. However, current trends indicate a widening asymmetry in costs. Russia’s Geran drones are becoming progressively more complex and expensive, defeating their initial intent. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s countermeasures are becoming cheaper, more numerous, and more scalable. In a prolonged war of attrition, where industrial capacity and resource efficiency matter as much as manpower, this cost imbalance is increasingly favoring Ukraine.