You can be certain Russia is sending some upgrades back to Iran ..
From Shahed to Geran: How Russia Continues to Reinvent the One-Way Attack Drone
Center for Strategic & International Studies
Premiered 9 hours ago
Since acquiring the original Shahed design from Iran in 2022, Russia has treated its Geran drone as a continuously evolving platform, rapidly upgrading its navigation, communications, payload, propulsion, and tactics in response to changing Ukrainian defenses. The evolution of the Geran over four years of conflict reflects a broader shift in modern weapons development, where advantage increasingly depends not on building the most advanced system at the outset but on maintaining the organizational and industrial capacity to continuously iterate a system after it has entered combat. On September 29, CSIS's Wadhwani AI Center will host an event unpacking how Russia has modified the Geran and what U.S. policymakers can learn from its development model. Wadhwani AI Center senior fellow Kateryna Bondar and research assistant Nicole Errera will present the findings of their recent report "From Shahed to Geran: How Russia Continues to Reinvent the One-Way Attack Drone." Following the presentation, Kateryna will be joined by Samuel Bendett, advisor to CNA's Strategy, Policy, Plans and Programs Division and senior associate (non-resident) with CSIS's Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program, for a broader conversation about Russia's defense ecosystem and the enabling role played by China, Iran, and North Korea. This event is made possible by general funding to CSIS and the CSIS Wadhwani AI Center.
This video from the
CSIS Wadhwani AI Center analyzes the evolution of the
Geran one-way attack drone, which Russia began producing after acquiring the
Iranian Shahed-136 design in 2022 (0:01:03 - 0:02:00). The speakers,
Kateryna Bondar and
Nicole Errera, argue that the system's danger lies in Russia's rapid industrial and organizational capacity to
continuously iterate and modify the platform in response to battlefield challenges (0:00:15 - 0:00:30).
Key developmental phases include:
- Electronic Warfare Resilience: Russia has repeatedly upgraded the Geran's satellite receivers, increasing the number of patch antennas to better counter Ukrainian jamming and spoofing (0:05:31 - 0:06:33).
- Onboard Communications: Moving away from "fire and forget" logic, Russia transitioned from experimental 4G modem trackers attached with duct tape to standardized Raspberry Pi setups, eventually deploying Chinese-made mesh radio modems that allow for real-time remote control of drone swarms (0:07:14 - 0:11:15).
- Lethality and Payloads: Engineers have localized production of warheads and experimented with diverse, heavier explosives. Additionally, the drones are being used as delivery systems for secondary payloads like anti-tank mines, air-to-air missiles for self-defense, and even FPV drones for mid-flight release (0:12:32 - 0:16:33).
- Shift to Speed: To counter high interception rates by Ukrainian air defenses, Russia transitioned from piston-engine models to jet-powered variants like the Geran-3 and Geran-4. The most recent iteration, the Geran-5, represents a major design break, resembling a cruise missile and significantly complicating interception efforts (0:17:25 - 0:22:23).
In the second half of the discussion,
Samuel Bendett joins to contextualize these findings within Russia's broader defense ecosystem, noting the role of international partners like
China,
Iran, and
North Korea in sharing knowledge and components (0:23:41 - 0:31:54). The participants emphasize that the
Geran is not an anomaly but a representative case study of how modern warfare requires high-speed iteration cycles and a shift toward multi-domain, autonomous-capable weapon systems (0:24:04 - 0:35:15).