See How Jet Power Is Giving Russia the Edge in the Drone War [excerpts]

By Jason French, Andrew Barnett and Roque Ruiz

Sept. 16, 2026 10:00 pm ET

The Wall Street Journal 

JB: Article contains numerous images of the latest weaponry.

Quick Summary

• -- Russia is deploying new jet-powered Geran drones that fly faster and carry larger payloads to evade Ukrainian air defenses.

• -- Ukraine intercepted just over 60% of the 2,800 jet-powered drones fired by Russia in August, compared with over 90% of other drone types.

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• -- Kyiv is racing to develop jet-powered interceptor drones to counter the threat, but the military hasn’t yet deployed them.

Russia is deploying new jet-powered Geran drones that fly faster and carry larger payloads to evade Ukrainian air defenses.

The latest revolution in drone warfare is jet powered.

Russia’s one-way attack drones—known as Gerans—are now equipped with turbojet engines. Relatively inexpensive to make, they are evading Ukrainian air defenses and hunting down their targets more quickly than their propeller-powered predecessors.

One struck a train in a station near the Ukrainian border with Poland over the weekend, just after high-level European officials had passed the same stretch of track and as former Central Intelligence Agency chief David Petraeus was in the rail station.

To counter the fast-flying drones, Kyiv is racing to develop jet-powered interceptor drones that travel at high speeds to knock them off course. But its military so far hasn’t deployed them and is getting beaten by Russia meanwhile.

 

In August, Russia fired 2,800 jet-powered drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, almost twice as many as in July. Ukraine intercepted just over 60% of them. That compares with an interception rate of over 90% for 4,400 other types of drones fired by Russia in the same month.

Jet propulsion and a reconfigured airframe make the latest-version Gerans act more like cruise missiles. They are capable of flying more than 300 miles an hour—roughly three times as fast as the Iranian Shahed drones on which they are based—and can carry payloads of up to 200 pounds, around 4½ times as much as their antecedents. They have a shorter range though than drones driven by propellers.  ...

The arrival of large numbers of jet drones in combat marks a new chapter in Russia’s long-range war on Ukrainian cities, where attacks are now occurring day and night.

The latest Geran “Seeker” variants use object recognition, allowing the drone to recognize targets and lock onto them. This enables the operator in Russia to select targets while the drone is in flight and allows the drone to autonomously strike targets if the connection to the operator is lost, according to DroneSec, a drone-threat intelligence company. 

The Seeker variant, combined with the increased use of jet-powered Geran series is proving far more effective than previous models,” said Darren DelSignore, general manager at DroneSec.

The seeker versions of the jet drones are also highly resistant to jamming or spoofing.

To intercept them, Ukraine is using combat aircraft, including F-16s. Kyiv’s portable surface-to-air missiles and fixed-site air-defense batteries are also hunting them down.

Several defense companies are working on a new generation of interceptors, but the solutions haven’t been scaled so far, Ukrainian officials say.

This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the successful testing of interceptors against jet-powered drones. But, he added, controlling the interceptors effectively required more refinements and time.

Russia first began using cheap one-way attack drones in the fall of 2022 to flood Ukraine’s air defenses and allow costlier, more powerful missiles to get through. By summer 2025, Moscow was deploying hundreds of the drones in nighttime salvos. But their slow speed made the unmanned aerial vehicles relatively easy to shoot down.

Adding jets re-established Russia’s edge. The jet-propelled leap was enabled in large part by components sourced from China, in violation of international sanctions, according to Ukraine and others, based in part on wreckage from the few shot down so far.

China has said it regulates exports of technologies that could be used in war. Parts made by Western companies have also been found in the drones. Most of the drone components are commercially available, so-called dual-use parts made for civilian or military applications, say weapons analysts. Western parts often end up in Russian hands via companies in third countries, they add. ...

 

Switzerland

The high-speed, jet-powered Gerans first emerged from Russia late last year. Since July, they have metastasized across Ukrainian skies—despite being more expensive than the propeller version. Some variants come equipped with mesh modems, which make them less vulnerable to electronic warfare, according to the U.S. military and weapons analysts. They also carry cameras.

Russia has reduced the total number of drones used in its attacks as it invests more resources into the newer jet-propelled models, Ukrainian officials have said ...