Ukraine sensed that there was a superpower behind Russia’s kamikaze drones. The surprise is that there are actually two
Many phases have passed since the Russian invasion in 2022 until today, but if one thing has become crystal clear, it is that the war in Ukraine has become a brutal laboratory where drones are the most decisive and fastest weapon to improve, to the point of concentrating a huge part of the recent losses and setting the pace of the war of attrition. In this scenario, Ukraine has been asking itself the same question for some time: how does Russia get so many drones? An industrial war. In the current scenario, the front is not only in Donetsk or Kharkiv, but also in industrial parks from Guangdong and Shenzhenwhere processors, cameras, motors, sensors and controllers are made that determine how much a drone flies, what it sees and how accurately it hits. The most disturbing thing here is not only the technological dependence, but the fact that this dependence is shared by both sideswhich turns the supply of parts into a kind of undercurrent that sustains the conflict even when sanctions seek to cut it off. The Geran-5. Now, Ukraine claims have identified a new Russian attack drone, the Geran-5which breaks with the classic “delta wing” type profile associated with the Iranian Shahed and adopts a shape more similar to a conventional aircraft, visually linking it Iranian Karrar and, by extension, to older designs inspired by American systems. The key is that it would be a more powerful and faster jet model, with an estimated speed up to 600 km/hand with tactical ambitions that go beyond the simple cheap “kamikaze drone”: it is attributed a range of about 900 km and an approximate war load of 90 kilos. Ukraine affirms that Russia is studying launching it from Su-25 aircraft to expand your radius of action, as well as explore configurations that include R-73 air-to-air missiles to complicate life for Ukrainian aviation. In other words, Russia is not only multiplying quantity, it is also testing a ladder of sophistication that mixes loitering munitions with concepts closer to a combat UAV. Geran-5 He Deja Vú. The central element, and the most politically controversial, is the list of foreign components that Ukraine claims to have found in the wreckage of the new Geran-5, including more than a dozen western and chinese electronic partswith at least nine attributed to American manufacturers and one identified like german. are mentioned critical components for navigation, communications and control, such as signal processors, clock generators and transceivers, that is, the type of electronics that does not “explode” by itself, but that turns a drone into a reliable, stable and reproducible system. For kyiv, this shows that Russia continues to avoid sanctions structurally, relying on gray markets and supply chains where real traceability is dissolved, and which has a huge machinery behind it headed by two superpowers (China and the US), along with the rest of Western “allies”. The underlying message is simple: modern war is not only won by manufacturing metal and explosives, also getting chipssensors and modules that are cheap, easy to transport and difficult to block without paralyzing global trade. Image provided by GUR showing the partial remains of a Geran-5 China as epicenter. The Financial Times said an almost absurd scene: Ukrainian businessmen visiting Chinese factories with schedules calculated to the second so as not to coincide with Russian buyers, entering through side doors and waiting in corridors, as if the conflict was managed with hotel logistics. The reason is that both armies they need the same parts and they go after the same suppliers because China dominates the material base of the commercial drone: not only does it produce a large part of the drones on the market, it also controls key elements such as cameras, sensors, controllers and propulsion, with costs much lower than Western equivalents. The result is that innovation leaks on both sides almost at the same time: if Ukraine sees a new transmitter on Russian drones, it locates the Chinese manufacturer and tries to buy it. If Ukraine asks for a specific upgrade, you may find that a week later that same supplier offers it to Russia as well. The war thus becomes a race of “components” more than doctrines, and China goes from being a “neutral” country to being the place where it is decided how quickly the conflict evolves. The supply chain. Beijing maintains the public line of neutrality and affirms that it does not supply lethal weapons, that it strictly controls dual-use goods and that its position is “objective and fair.” However, as we have said, the reality It’s different: Even if controls are in place, the system is filled with middlemen, shell companies, opaque routes and deliberate ambiguity about the end user. A market where some exhibitors show platforms with simulated weaponswhere military buyers mix with civilian fairs. In parallel, there is an imbalance of power: Russia, with more resources and priority state, can pay more, buy earlier and secure quotas, leaving Ukraine waiting or forcing it to improvise at the front due to lack of parts. Neutrality, in practice, is not just about prohibiting, but about who can best circumvent the restrictions. How to avoid restrictions. The real circumvention ecosystem works with shipments via indirect routestransportation through third countries, trucks crossing Central Asia with limited controls, and a logistics market specialized in “sensitive merchandise” that continues to operate because the economic incentive is enormous. Plus: the role of regional financial clearing platforms, which facilitate payments for sanctioned productsand the ability to create intermediate entities even in European countries to disguise operations. If you like, sanctions, as they work, introduce friction, but not rupture: they make it more expensive, slow down, force people to hide better, but they do not cut off the flow of chips, motors or cameras. And in a war where an FPV drone can be as decisive as an armoredthat logistical continuity is equivalent to operational continuity on the battlefield. Ukrainian dependency. Ukraine has made a lot of progress in … Read more
