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Russia has reportedly began equipping Geran suicide drones with passive radar seekers to hunt down Ukrainian radar systems.
Ukrainian media reported the development on March 29, sharing photos of the seeker allegedly recovered from a downed or crashed drone that was listed for sale on a Ukrainian military auction platform for $3,200.
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The seeker was described as a passive radar homing unit that allows a drone to autonomously track sources of radio emissions during flight.
It includes four directional antennas. Parts of these antennas were linked by some Ukrainian experts to the “Lira-VM” system, which is associated with Russia’s unified state radar identification network, typically used in aviation and air defense systems.
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The seeker was most likely developed specifically for the propeller-driven Geran-2, which is said to be a copy of Iran’s Shahed-136.
Besides being the most commonly used version of the Geran family, the drone has a range of around 2,500 kilometers with a moderate cruise speed of 180 kilometers per hour. This gives the Geran-2 a fairly long endurance, which would make it the most suitable for use as a radar hunter.
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Israel has been fielding similar radar hunting drones, namely the IAI Harpy, since the late 1980s. Such drones are meant to loiter over a certain area, provoke the enemy to turn on its radars to activate air defenses, then to quickly locate and engage these systems with little to no human input.
In the case of the alleged Geran radar hunter, these could be used to escort other suicide drones on deep strikes against Ukraine, and engage radars as they are activated along the way.
Russia expanded the Geran program significantly over the past year, with some reports suggesting that the country could soon produce as many as 6,000 such drones a month. The number covers the Geran-2, and the lighter pusher-propelled Geran-1, as well as the jet-powered Geran-3, 4 and 5 which are way faster.
Versions used for reconnaissance, to scatter mines, or even armed with anti-aircraft missiles have been already tested in the special military operation zone.
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