Geran-2

The Geran-2 is Russia's military designation for an upgraded variant of Iran's Shahed-136 loitering munition, which Russia has used extensively against Ukrainian infrastructure since 2022. The original Shahed-136 uses a delta-wing layout with a piston engine and a nose-mounted warhead, with a range exceeding 2,500 km; the Russian upgrades are reported to include improved navigation and countermeasure resistance.

In a significant reversal of the original supply relationship, Russia shipped upgraded Geran-2 variants back to Iran by sea, with delivery completed by end of March 2026; President Zelensky confirmed the transfer, and Russia also provided satellite targeting data alongside the drones. Iran originally supplied the Shahed design to Russia in 2022, so the Geran-2 is the production-evolved version returning to its source, deepening Russia-Iran military interdependence at a moment when Iran's drone stocks face sustained Coalition attrition.

Geran-2 drove a record month of Russian long-range strikes in May 2026: Russia launched 8,150 long-range drones across the month, and the campaign escalated into early June with a barrage of 656 drones and 73 missiles overnight into 2 June, the largest combined assault of the window, that collapsed a four-storey apartment block in Dnipro and killed 22 people. Zelenskyy said Ukraine's air defences could not stop a meaningful share of the incoming weapons.

The scale reflects the same mass-production logic that lets Russia re-export the munition to Iran while still saturating Ukrainian cities, a quantity advantage that air defence attrition struggles to match.