Firefighters work after a drone attack on buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Oct. 17, 2022.
Roman Hrytsyna/Associated Press
The explosive warheads in suicide drones the used by Russia are designed to shred targets apart.
The warheads have been fitted with small metal fragments, according to a new investigation.
Russia has used these Iranian-made drones to wreak havoc on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
The warheads in the Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones being used by Russia to attack critical energy infrastructure in Ukraine have been built to inflict “maximum damage,” according to a new investigation from a UK-based organization that was first reported on by CNN.
The explosive warheads are being fitted with small metal fragments to help shred targets upon impact and make the repair process far more difficult, per the report from Conflict Armament Research, which analyzed an unexploded warhead from an Iranian Shahed-131 drone found in southern Ukraine.
The report said that the warhead’s overall construction appeared to be well done, but added that the metal fragments appeared to be a “later addition” and were poorly fitted.
“It’s as though they looked at the finished warhead and said, ‘How can we make this even more destructive?'” Damien Spleeters, one of the investigators, told CNN. Spleeters said it was clear that a lot of thought was put into how to inflict “as much damage as possible to infrastructure in a large radius.”
Russia’s targeting of civilian infrastructure has at times left millions of Ukrainians without power or water during the country’s harsh winter. Top human rights groups have decried Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid as a war crime.
Iran has provided Russia with hundreds of drones, including many suicide drones, a kind of loitering munition, and the Biden administration has warned that the two are forming a “full-fledged defense partnership.” Moscow and Tehran are also moving forward with a plan to set up a drone factory in Russia that could help fuel the war effort in Ukraine, per a recent Wall Street Journal report.
Drones of all shapes and sizes have played an unprecedented role on the battlefield in Ukraine, and some military analysts say that so-called kamikaze drones like the Shahed-131, which are designed for single-use and explode on impact, could become increasingly prevalent in future armed conflicts.