Paul Ivan

Footage has emerged from aboard the CONTSHIP JET, the ship struck by a drone off the coast of Bulgaria. Efforts to identify the drone are currently underway.

Russia is quietly rewriting its drone-war playbook, and the Geran-4/5 shift is the clearest evidence yet. For over a year, the workhorse was the Geran-2, a slow, propeller-driven Shahed derivative. That era is ending. Russia has already halted production of the jet-powered Geran-3 and pivoted its lines entirely toward two new models: the Geran-4 and Geran-5. Output is now around 3,000 of these jet drones a month, alongside roughly 2,800 propeller Geran-2s — a scale that dwarfs anything seen earlier in the war. The two models solve different problems. The Geran-4 keeps the familiar delta-wing Shahed silhouette but reinforces the airframe and swaps in a Chinese Telefly turbojet. That pushes cruise speed to 350–500 km/h, with bursts to 500+, range out to 850–960 km, and a 50–90 kg warhead. The Geran-5 is a different animal entirely: it drops the delta shape for a cylindrical, missile-like fuselage, weighs 850 kg at takeoff, hits 450–600 km/h, carries a 90 kg warhead, and reaches nearly 1,000 km — functionally a cruise missile sold at drone prices. What's really changing isn't just hardware but the doctrine. Three shifts stand out: - Instead of hugging the ground, Geran-4/5 are now flying at 5–7 km during cruise phases, well above the engagement envelope of many mobile air-defense teams and cheap interceptor drones Ukraine has been fielding. Combined with jet speeds three times faster than piston Shaheds, this is straining Ukraine's interceptor programs, which were only catching up to the slower Geran-2 threat. - Both new variants add thermal imaging, AI-based target correction, Russian anti-jamming antennas, and Chinese mesh-radio networking — a real leap from the rudimentary GPS/inertial guidance of earlier Gerans. That reduces dependence on satellite navigation exactly where Ukrainian EW is strongest. - Russia has roughly halved per-unit cost to $50,000–70,000 by 3D-printing turbine parts and streamlining Alabuga's production lines — meaning the faster, harder-to-kill drone is now also the cheaper one to mass-produce. There's also a proliferation angle worth flagging: the Financial Times reports Iran has asked Moscow to supply Geran-5s for its own conflict with Israel and the US, essentially requesting the upgraded version of the platform it originally gave Russia. And Ukraine's HUR says some Geran-5s can be armed with R-73 air-to-air missiles and even air-launched from Su-25s, hinting at an anti-aircraft/anti-drone role beyond strike missions. The strategic reach is expanding too. A Telegraph investigation found at least 59 new Russian drone launch rails near NATO's borders, roughly 20 long enough for Geran-4/5, putting Warsaw within range. That geography helps explain the recent incursions into Romanian and Moldovan airspace — including the drone that nearly intercepted Zelensky's aircraft — where open-source analysts identified the intruder as a Geran-4. Russia isn't just iterating on the Shahed anymore, but converting a cheap, disposable saturation weapon into a faster, smarter, longer-range strike system that blurs the line with cruise missiles, while making it harder and more expensive for Ukraine (and potentially NATO's eastern flank) to keep up.