File image.
Russian jet-powered Geran-4 one-way attack drones reached Ukraine’s Lviv region for the first time on October 10, following earlier reported strikes in the Rivne and Volyn regions in August.
Ukraine’s Air Force reported early in the morning that a jet-powered drone was heading toward Lviv and the nearby town of Vynnyky, later warning that it was approaching Lviv airport. Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi confirmed soon afterward that the drone had entered the city’s airspace.
The incident came amid a broader wave of Russian jet-powered drone attacks against western Ukraine. Geran-4 drones targeted not just Lviv, but also Volyn, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi and Ivano-Frankivsk regions from late October 9 overnight into October 10.
Russia disclosed the Geran-4’s range publicly on October 2, when a representative briefed President Vladimir Putin on the drone during a visit to the Chebarkulsky training ground in the Chelyabinsk region. The representative said the drone travels at 350 kilometers per hour, carries a 50-kilogram warhead and has a range of 750 to 800 kilometers.
Those figures place western Ukrainian targets within its declared operational reach. Yet there have been reports of strikes even beyond this range.
In August, an unidentified Russian jet-powered drone reportedly traveled about 900 kilometers from Crimea before reaching Dubno in the Rivne region.
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence revealed earlier this week that Russia has begun to produce an updated version of the Geran-4.
The updated version replaces the Chinese Telefly turbojet engine with a Russian-produced equivalent and adds the Susanin electro-optical system, which compares onboard camera images with stored reference imagery to guide the drone along a designated route. It is also armed with a new shaped-charge warhead designed to cut through bridge structures and supports for overhead power lines.
The continued development of the Geran drone represents a growing threat to Ukrainian air defenses, which are struggling to cope with existing versions.
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