Russia’s rumored jet-powered versions of the Iranian Shahed are appearing in Ukraine’s air defense reports

• Ukrainian reports are starting to document the use of new jet jet Shahed drones.

• It is said that a version, unofficially nicknamed the Geran-3, flies up to 500 miles per hour.

• These speeds would pose key problems for Ukraine air defenses if jet drones are launched en masse.

More signs are emerging that Russia is launching a new drone that explodes to fly much faster than its current Shaheds.

The Ukraine Air Force command reported on Wednesday that he had met with reaction attack drones while defending his airspace the previous night.

“A notable characteristic of the night attack was the use of eight UAV reaction in northern direction,” he wrote in a regular update.

The announcement marks one of the first official reports of the forces of Ukraine meeting the new ammunition of woolen in combat.

In total, the Air Force command had 78 Shahed attack drones launched on Tuesday evening.

The declaration added that 51 drones were killed or deactivated by electronic war, interceptor drones, anti-aerial missiles and mobile fire groups, which generally use machine guns mounted on a truck.

The Ukrainian Air Force did not specify if drones powered by jet had been slaughtered.

“There were 27 impacts of drones recorded at 7 locations and the fall in debris of drones slaughtered with 2 locations,” wrote Air Force Command.

On Thursday, a Ukrainian telegram channel that monitors the flight paths for Russian drones also wrote that it had recorded drone launches powered by jets.

“On the map we have drawn for you, you can see the movement of cruise missiles, jet shaheds and regular typing / lure drones,” he wrote. Although it is not an official government channel, it is widely followed in Ukraine for specific alerts in the city on incoming drones.

A major problem for Ukraine air defenses

It is believed that Russian jet-on-jet drones were closely modeled after Iran Shahed-238, an improved long-range wool ammunition that Tehran unveiled in November.

Moscow has not officially detailed its own version of the new weapon, but analysts of Ukraine and Western analysts reported that it probably built a model with the Tolou-10/13 reaction engine to considerably increase the speed of the drone.

Open source sources of intelligence said in January that Ukraine may have shot down at least one Shahed-238 type drone, indicating limited Russian use. In June, the images published by Ukrainian telegram channels seem to show destroyed fragments of these drones in the country.

Wednesday, in previous reports and the Air Force Command update, it is not clear if they were prototypes or finalized drones.

But if it was deployed en masse against Ukraine, the new improved drone could pose a major problem for the kyiv air defenses.

The Shahed-238 would be much faster than the Shahed-136, which is produced locally in Russia under the name of Geran-2-the main attack drone of the Kremlin against Ukraine.

While the Shahed-136 is known to fly at maximum speeds of 115 MPH, a Russian general told the state media in December that the Shahed-238 could steal as quickly as 500 MPH. Independent analyzes extended to drones are still not accessible to the public, and it is possible that ammunition cannot fly so quickly during diving.

At such speed, however, the jet drone would be almost as fast as a cruise missile.

It would be an almost impossible target for the mobile fire groups of Ukraine, or the machine gun teams mounted on the vehicle on which he relied to fight the Shahed-136.

This year, groups of mobile firefighters are already overwhelmed by the large number of Shahed-136 Russians launched every evening. To acquire the gap, Ukraine began to prioritize interceptor drones, which are also likely to be made obsolete if the jet shaheds become common.

Interceptor drones, secretly built by Ukrainian companies, must already fly much faster than the Shahed-136 because they must catch up with the munition of vagueness after its detection.

A Shahed-238 or Geran-3 moving to 500 MPH would require that an intercepting drone steals almost three times faster than before.

“In such a case, promising drones of the promising anti -aircraft interceptor will unfortunately be helpless,” a Ukrainian military blogger in late June.

Ukraine has advanced anti-air anti-air defenses for faster targets, such as the patriotic system manufactured in the United States, which has even eliminated the hypersonic kinzhal missile.

However, Ukraine generally reserves these expensive anti-air ammunition for ballistic missiles; Spending them to neutralize the waves of Shahed drones would not be durable.

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