Reports circulating on social media and pro-Russian channels claimed that Moscow has deployed a new jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicle, Geran-5, in strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure that can overcome western-supplied air defence systems.

According to the unconfirmed claims, Russia used the platform in an attack on oil and gas facilities near Moshenka in Ukraine’s Sumy region.

The Geran-5 is an ungraded version of the Geran-2 drone, based on the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 loitering munition currently being mass produced at Russia’s drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan.

The new version is a significant evolution of earlier Iranian-designed Shahed drones, which Russia has used extensively during the war. It is described as reaching speeds up to 600 km/h and climbing to 6,000 metres, allowing it to “easily dodges MANPADS, small anti-air guns, and interceptor drones while striking deep targets”.

The platform is also said to weigh 850 kg at takeoff, carries a 90–130 kg warhead, and flies over 950 km—making it a cheap but powerful tactical cruise missile. Analysts note that such specifications, if accurate, would place it closer to a low-cost cruise missile than to earlier loitering munitions. If the drone is launched from a Russian jet fighter then it gains an additional 100km of range, putting its launch well outside of Ukraine’s missile defence space.

The Geran-5 has a simple straight-wing design, round body, and H-shaped tail with a turbojet engine—much easier and cheaper to build in large numbers at the Alabuga factory.

The system is equipped with the Cometa 12-channel satellite navigation plus 3G/4G phone tower backup—stays accurate even when jammed and shares parts with older Gerans for quick upgrades, according to the reports.

Western officials have acknowledged that Russia has steadily expanded its drone production capacity, including at facilities such as Alabuga in Tatarstan, often with Iranian technical support. As IntelliNews reported, the CRINK alliance (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) has increasingly been cooperating on military development and trading technologies. The US has been wrong footed in the Iran war by the increasing sophistication of Iran’s newest drones and missiles. Ukraine has relied heavily on US-made Patriot air defence systems to counter missile and drone attacks, but the Iran conflict has shown the US interceptors are becoming less effective as Iranian and Russian missile and drone technology develops.