Russia doubles down on the Shahed
Russia’s use of one-way attack uninhabited aerial vehicles (OWA-UAVs) in Ukraine intensified during the latter months of 2024 and has shown little sign of slowing in 2025.
Ukrainian Air Force figures show that since June 2024, there has been a month-on-month increase in OWA-UAV attacks, with 2,300 launched in November 2024 and 2,696 in January 2025. This growth has been enabled by Russia’s ability to increase local production of a version of the Iranian Shahed 136 OWA-UAV.
In 2022, Iran began supplying Shahed 131 and Shahed 136 OWA-UAVs for Russian use in the war in Ukraine. Shortly thereafter, Iran initiated a large-scale technology transfer programme to facilitate the production of these systems in Russia. Domestically manufactured variants of the Shahed 136, designated Geran-2, remain the cornerstone of Russia’s deep-strike OWA-UAV campaign.