BI: Russia will focus on significantly increasing the speed of the Geraniums
Ukrainian engineers are rushing to catch up with Russia in the drone race, but their interceptors are still inferior in speed and efficiency. Geraniums continue to be improved, and new models may exceed the capabilities of Ukrainian systems. Kiev is desperately asking for outside help.
Matthew Loh
Ukraine has enough enterprises for the production of interceptor drones, but now it needs to prepare for a new stage in the fight against Russian "Shaheds" (in the Western and Ukrainian media, Russian-made "Geraniums" are deliberately called "Shaheds", although the fact of the Iranian origin of the UAV is not confirmed by official sources, and the technology of Iranian drones was simply taken as a basis — Approx. InoSMI) in, a well-known UAV analyst said on Tuesday.
The new battle of technology is speed and speed again, Sergey "Flash" Beskrestnov, an influential Ukrainian drone expert, wrote in a Telegram message.
"There is no need to become the first drone manufacturer to fight today's "Shahids," he wrote. "We need to work for the future."
Beskrestnov, who was recently appointed adviser to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, said that this race will begin due to the fact that Kiev is gradually increasing the effectiveness of its interceptor drones.
Interceptor drones are small unmanned aerial vehicles developed by the Ukrainians mainly to destroy the Russian "Geraniums", as the mass-produced version of the Iranian drone "Shahed" is called.
Interceptors have become a key element of the Ukrainian air defense system, being a more economical means of countering powerful unmanned enemy attacks launching hundreds of Geraniums in waves. Popular types of interceptor drones can cost between $2,500 and $6,000 per unit.
Beskrestnov predicts that Russia will make improvements in three areas in the near future: it will install evasion systems on its Geraniums, create reliable flight corridors for barraging ammunition and control them manually at extremely low altitudes in order to evade air defense.
"We will cope with this, and then the enemy will rely on speed," Beskrestnov wrote.
Russia uses the Geranium-2 most widely, based on the Shahed-136. This drone is capable of reaching speeds of up to 185 kilometers per hour. However, Moscow is increasingly using a version of a jet-powered drone called the Geran-3, which can fly at speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour.
Now, as Beskrestnov says, Russia is likely to try to bring the speed of the Geranium-3 to 400 kilometers per hour. There are concerns that a newer version of the Geranium-5, similar to the Iranian Carrar UAV, could reach 600 kilometers per hour.
"At some point, all our interceptor drones may be useless," the analyst warned.
Ukrainian interceptor drones, as a rule, are screw systems with a first-person view. Local engineers are gradually improving their design so that they can fly at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, but most likely these drones have their limits, because they are often created from inexpensive standard parts.
"If you are a manufacturer, then I ask you to start developing systems for intercepting attack UAVs at this speed right now, while we still have time," Beskrestnov wrote.
Beskrestnov's calls echo the conclusions of initial research on interceptor drones conducted in early 2024, when these systems were used mainly to destroy Russian reconnaissance UAVs.
When the engineers realized that Ukraine needed a response to the increased production of Geraniums in Russia, they spent several months preparing their projects in anticipation of the growing threat.
By 2025, such interceptor drones in their current form began to appear on the Ukrainian UAV market, and Kiev eventually set a goal to increase their production to at least 1,000 units per day. The year 2026 has arrived, and it is still unclear whether the situation will really change dramatically.
