The Russian news agency RIA Novosti published a report ofRussian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the “Special Technological Center” in St. Petersburg on Sept.19. During the tour of the enterprise, Putin was shown new developments in Russia’s unmanned systems, including the Zala Lancet and the Orlan-10.
After a walk-through of the display of drones, Putin chaired a meeting to speak on military production, in general, and drones in particular.
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He said that Russia plans to increase its production of all types of unmanned vehicle by almost ten times in 2024 and to expand the range of technology available.
Putin said: “Most of them will be sent to the troops located on the line of combat contact.” He stressed the importance of covering all the needs of the Russian Armed Forces, not only through increased production but also modernization and improvement in the tactical and technical characteristics of the weapons supplied.
Images of the event captured a black UAV, which at first glance looked like very similar to the Shahed-136 kamikaze drone that has been used to terrorize Ukraine for more than two years, but with a modified nose – this is the Shahed-236.
The Shahed-236, shares its design and many of its components with the older Shahed-136, though the modified front section houses an optical “seeker.” This is said to combine an autonomous target acquisition system with additional guidance capabilities that allow the operator to manually guide the drone in its attack run.
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In February, the “Prana Network,” said to be part of the Anonymous hackers collective, claimed to have downloaded more than 10 gigabytes of documents that it said had been obtained from Iran’s Islamic Republican Guard Corps (IRGC). This, it said, came from hacking the servers of the “Sahara Thunder” company, which handles the illegal transfer of weapons from Iran to Russia.
The leaked documents provided technical and financial details of the provision of attack drones to Russia and was the first confirmation of the establishment of a facility for the assembly of Iranian Shahed-136 combat drones, called Geran-2 in Russia, in the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan.
According to the papers, the contract price paid by Russia, including technology transfer, equipment, 6,000 drone kits, and software, amounted to around 108.5 billion rubles ($1.75 billion), much of it paid for by the transfer of more than 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of gold bars.
Documents dated November 2022 give details of the Shahed-236, also referred to as the MC-236, stating it can operate at night and successfully strike within 3-5 meters of its predetermined targets. The information obtained summarizes testing results showing the drone successfully hitting 6 x 3-meter (20 x 10 feet) targets that included flight profiles showing the use of relay drones and control stations to provide a maximum range of 220 kilometers (138 miles).
It also provides a list of components included with the UAV such as “avionics,” jet-assisted takeoff systems, and the Nassir-2 anti-jamming system.
Another document from April 2023 shows Russia was trying to get the rights to fabricate several different Iranian designed drones, including two versions of the Shahed-236 drone fitted with “seeker” heads – one type containing a turbo-jet engine and one with a conventional piston engine.
According to the document, the conventionally propelled Shahed-236 seeker drone is priced at $900,000, while the turbo-jet model was priced at $1.4 million, which made it more expensive than Russia’s Kalibr cruise missile. It also discussed possible delivery and assembly schedules.
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