Russia's $100,000 jet weapons reveal cost gap with Western interceptors

Chinese components in Russian weapons violate sanctions, Ukraine says

Russia has deployed new Geran-5 jet-powered drones and Banderol cruise missiles against Ukraine, weapons that cost around $100,000 each and rely heavily on Chinese components sourced in violation of international sanctions, according to Ukraine and analysts cited by The Wall Street Journal. The new weapons have forced a rewrite of the counter-drone playbook and prompted NATO members to pledge more than $40 billion over five years to meet the threat.

Both the Geran-5 and Banderol represent a middle ground between inexpensive low-end arms and costly high-end cruise missiles, the Journal reported. The Geran series began as propeller-driven versions of Iranian Shahed drones that Ukraine had become skilled at intercepting. Russian engineers, through successive iterations, added speed and survivability using improved electronics for navigation and communications, until the latest Geran-5 “looks more like a missile than a Shahed,” Mike Monnik, chief executive of the drone-threat intelligence company DroneSec, told the Journal.

The Geran-5 “is essentially a poor-man’s cruise missile,” Monnik told the Journal, forcing a rewrite of the counter-drone playbook written for slower propeller aircraft. High-end U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles and comparable Russian models cost more than $2 million each, the Journal reported.

Both weapons rely heavily on Chinese components — including jet engines, navigation computers and communications electronics — sourced in violation of international sanctions, according to Ukraine and analysts who examined wreckage from downed units. DroneSec analysts concur with Ukrainian assessments that most Chinese parts are commercially available dual-use items, and that Russian engineers are skilled at exploiting them, such as in creating antennas that thwart electronic countermeasures and communication networks that overcome jamming. “Russia is critically dependent on Chinese components” for its drone program, Monnik told the Journal. China has said it regulates exports of technologies that could be used in war. Chinese jet engines for Gerans cost $45,000 or less per DroneSec estimates, and defenders generally fire several interceptors at each incoming weapon.

Russia developed and fielded both weapons within roughly two years by modifying earlier models, combat-testing them and quickly moving to mass production, analysts told the Journal. The weapons show that the Russian military “remains adaptable and innovative,” say analysts and diplomats, and Moscow has managed to field them despite Ukraine’s increasingly damaging strikes on critical nodes in Russia’s economy.

“Here in the West, we tend to underestimate Russia, but they can go very fast from idea and experimentation to production,” said Kateryna Bondar, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Wadhwani AI Center in Washington. “This loop is something Western militaries should learn from Russia.” Once designs are adopted, Russian companies quickly move to large-scale production, fulfilling another strategic goal of all sides today: volume. “Now we see that mass is a huge part of success,” Bondar said.

Ukraine developed one of the first effective jet-powered drones but lacks production resources and much capacity to think beyond the near future, according to the Journal. The U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are meanwhile struggling to increase production of vital arms such as Patriot surface-to-air interceptors. Western governments are also grappling with how to accelerate turning battlefield innovations into mass-produced equipment.

Russia has largely directed its weapons at Ukraine, part of a campaign against civilian life and infrastructure, the Journal reported. Some Russian drones and missiles have also entered NATO airspace, either accidentally due to electronic warfare or intentionally in an attempt to probe NATO defenses. Either way, say military analysts, NATO must learn from — and be ready for — Russia’s ability to unleash a range of aerial weapons at different altitudes, speeds and cost levels.

For Ukraine, Moscow’s advances are confounding because it also faces Russian ballistic missiles, which carry massive explosive payloads and are especially difficult to intercept, the Journal reported. Russia is also pummeling Ukrainian troops with glide bombs dropped from warplanes, which Ukraine has “almost no way to stop.” “While the drones are a problem, by far the biggest problem for Ukraine is glide bombs,” Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, told the Journal. The glide-bomb pummeling, he added, threatens Kyiv’s ability to maintain its front lines.

President Vladimir Putin has used his iron grip on the country to largely reorient it behind his conquest of Ukraine, allowing him to funnel cash from the budget and state-owned banks into the defense sector, the Journal reported. He has mobilized in a way that NATO’s democracies haven’t considered doing since World War II.

NATO is responding. At a recent summit, alliance members pledged to invest more than $40 billion over five years in counter-drone capabilities, according to Army Col. Martin O’Donnell, spokesman for NATO’s top military commander, Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich. “We must apply and adapt all available tools and capabilities to the realities we face today,” O’Donnell told the Journal.

The economic mismatch between cheap Russian weapons and expensive Western interceptors has emerged as a particular headache. American forces in the Persian Gulf and NATO have resorted to using expensive equipment like Patriots and jet fighters to intercept inexpensive drones and missiles. Companies developing cheaper interceptors — including Merops, backed by former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and deployed along NATO’s eastern flank and in the Persian Gulf — are now being redesigned in a jet-powered version. Auterion, a leading software supplier to Ukrainian drone makers, is working with partners on high-speed propeller interceptors and jet-powered ones, chief executive Lorenz Meier told the Journal.

Moscow’s developments also directly affect the U.S. because Russia, Iran and North Korea share military know-how, the Journal reported. Innovations from the war in Ukraine are appearing in America’s war with Iran and vice versa.

Blurred lines among classes of weapons call for defenses that are more integrated and prepared for a spectrum of threats aiming to overwhelm air defenses, say military specialists. Bronk said NATO would be well served to set up a specialized multinational counterdrone force that constantly trains to down all kinds of drones and missiles. He said this could be done using relatively affordable equipment like radar-guided antiaircraft cannons and simple jet planes used to train combat pilots. “It’s not an inherently difficult problem,” Bronk said. “It’s just not one we’re optimized for.”

Bondar, the CSIS analyst, warned that the latest weapons were predictable. Ukraine had indications for several years that Russia was working on jet-powered drones and inexpensive cruise missiles, she said, yet Kyiv has been unprepared for their large-scale use. “It was obvious quite a while ago that we’d end up here,” Bondar told the Journal. “I’m surprised everyone is surprised.”