Jet-powered Geran drones currently pose a greater threat to Ukraine than Russian ballistic missiles, according to Roman Kostenko, an SBU colonel and secretary of the Ukrainian parliament’s Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence.

Kostenko believes the main danger lies not so much in the destructive power of an individual weapon, but in the potential for the mass deployment of jet-powered drones. Ballistic missiles are significantly more expensive, their numbers are limited, and each missile is intended to destroy a specific target. In some cases, he argues, the destructive power of a ballistic missile is excessive for the target in question.

Ukraine’s energy system is also relatively decentralized. Inflicting large-scale damage therefore requires strikes against numerous distributed facilities. Kostenko believes this is where jet-powered Geran drones have an advantage: they can potentially be used in large numbers against relatively small targets that would not justify the use of expensive ballistic missiles.

He cited transformers as an example. Using a ballistic missile to destroy such a target would be too costly, while employing a jet-powered strike drone would be considerably cheaper.

Kostenko identified the lack of an effective countermeasure as an additional problem for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Ukraine had discussed the potential emergence of high-speed jet-powered versions of strike drones in advance, but according to him, it has still failed to develop a comprehensive solution to counter them.

The situation is further complicated by increased production of such drones in Russia. According to Kostenko, Russia is expanding production of jet-powered Geran drones while simultaneously reducing output of conventional versions, which Ukrainian air defenses have learned to intercept more effectively.

As a result, the combination of mass deployment, higher speed and lower cost of use makes jet-powered Geran drones particularly dangerous to Ukraine’s distributed infrastructure. Kostenko acknowledges that Ukrainian forces are currently unable to fully counter these drones.