Russia has been attacking Ukraine, especially its energy infrastructure, with the Iranian loitering munition Shahed-136 since late 2022. These suicide drones are basically flying artillery shells and they can inflict a lot of damage by ramming their rather powerful warheads into transformers, power stations and other objects of infrastructure. Ukraine learned to defeat them, but now Russia is adapting too.
Normally Shahed-136 (Geran-2) drones are painted white. Image credit: Kyivcity.gov.ua via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0)
The Shahed-136 is a large cheap drone, launched in large swarms. These drones, powered by air-cooled reciprocating engines are not particularly sophisticated or difficult to take down. In fact, if any kind of air-defense system is active in its path, the probability of a Shahed-136 drone being shot down is quite high.
However, the strength of these drones is their large number – they are launched in swarms, which are supposed to be so big in number that some of the drones would slip through. Russia even started manufacturing a home-cooked version of the Shahed-136 they call Geran-2.
However, it doesn’t even matter how large these swarms are – most of these drones are still being taken down. This is thanks to numerous air defense systems, donated to Ukraine by international partners. These drones, which are called “mopeds” by Ukrainians, are being shot down using missiles and even automatic cannons. And so Russia is adapting.
Firefighters in Kyiv extinguishing flames after the Russian drone attack on 5th of November. Image credit: Dsns.gov.ua via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0)
At night from the 24th of November to the 25th Russia launched a massive Shahed-136 drone attack. It is believed that at least 75 drones of this type were launched towards Ukraine, mostly aiming for the Kyiv region. At least 71 of them were taken down, but the falling debris still caused some considerable damage.
Experts in Ukraine, of course, as usual, analyzed the debris they found and discovered something interesting – the drones used in this night attack were painted black. This is very unusual – normally Shahed-136/Geran-2 drones are white. And it is easy to guess why they chose black – white pops out in the dark sky, especially when the sun is rising or going down. Russians believe that black drones will be more difficult to spot.
😐 Russians used black-painted Shaheds to strike Kyiv for the first time.
This makes them difficult to detect at the night. pic.twitter.com/V4EnP7F9oo
— MAKS 23 👀🇺🇦 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) November 25, 2023
Interestingly, this might not be a unique Russian idea. Recently new Shahed 238 drones were introduced in Iran. These UAVs are more advanced – have jet engines, and better homing heads. And were also black. One might wonder if they are black because of lessons learned during the war in Ukraine.
However, this change, apparently, was not as effective as they’d hoped – most of the drones were shot down. On the other hand, it does show that Russians are looking for ways to inflict more damage. This idea didn’t work, but who knows what other tricks they might try.
Written by Povilas M.
Source: MAKS 23 Twitter