Russian Shaheds Now Have Jet Engines, Armor, AI, And Armed Escorts
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A cat climbs in wrecked of Russian Shahed in Kyiv Oblast, Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images Russia’s Shahed campaign against civilian targets is intensifying. Last night a wave of the drones struck Odessa, destroying a four-story residential building and damaging several others, including a 23-story apartment complex which caught fire forcing 600 people to evacuate. Ukrainian intelligence warns that Russian attacks may escalate from a few hundred Shaheds a night to a thousand. At the same time Russia is rapidly evolving both the technology and the tactics of its low-cost attack drones. Hardware Upgrades: Jets And More Made under license from Iran, the Shahed-136 is a simple design with a two-cycle piston engine driving a propeller and making a noise like a lawnmower, and an airframe made of carbon fiber cloth and honeycomb so basic that a report from thinktank RUSI notes it “can effectively be manufactured by any DIY handyman.” But a succession of modifications have made the Shahed more deadly. Earlier we saw a black ‘stealth’ coating and several new warheads including a thermobaric version for demolishing buildings and to maximize casualties, as well as jam-resistant navigation and other upgrades. Jet engine recovered from a downed Shahed Defense Express In a more significant modification some Shaheds are now appearing with turbojet engines. Iran showed off the Shahed-238, a jet-powered version of the Shahged-136 in 2023 it is not clear whether this is the same drone. In fact there is some confusion as the Iranians have also paraded a jet-powered version with the label Shahed-136 in September 2024, so there may be several different designs. Analyst Shahryar Pasandideh, who has studied this in detail, suggests there are at least three versions. While there had been rumors of jet powered Shaheds in Ukraine for some time, we have only…
