Russia used 'kamikaze' drones to attack Ukraine this week. Here's what to know.

Niamh Cavanagh
·Reporter
Updated ·5 min read

TBILISI, Georgia — A wave of so-called kamikaze drones struck Ukrainian cities during the morning rush hour on Monday, killing at least nine civilians.

One of the 28 drones to terrorize the capital city, Kyiv, hit a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district. Although many were shot down by Ukraine’s armed forces, five were believed to have caused explosions in the city. Russia unleashed a total of 43 drones across Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

Under a crane, rescuers in hard hats climb down a huge pile of steaming rubble in a destroyed residential building, while one hoses down the wreckage.
Rescuers clear the rubble of a residential building destroyed by a "kamikaze" drone attack in downtown Kyiv on Monday. (Oleg Pereverzev/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, said the drones, which carried explosives, killed five people in the capital, including a pregnant woman and an elderly woman. Four others were killed in Sumy, the BBC reported. Rescue crews continue to search through the rubble for victims.

Ukrainian officials said that critical energy infrastructure had been hit in Kyiv as well as in Sumy and Dnipro. According to Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, hundreds of houses have been left without electricity.

What type of drones were used in the attacks?

A view of the underside of a drone in flight.
A drone flies over Kyiv during an attack on Monday. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

According to an analysis by Janes, the global agency for open-source defense intelligence, the drones, or "Autonomous, pusher-prop loitering munitions," are believed to have been Iranian-made Shahed-136s or a smaller version, Shahed-131.

“The recent markings in the Russia-Ukraine conflict translate to the name Geran-2, like the name adapted by the Ansar Allah (Houthis), a non-state armed group in Yemen as Wa'aed,” a Janes analyst said in an email to Yahoo News. “The initial sights of Shahed-131 happened in 2014.”

Two young women look back in disgust at a small pile of twisted metal on the cobblestones of a public street, surrounded by red-and-white striped emergency tape.
Kyiv residents look at parts of an unmanned aerial vehicle that Ukrainian authorities consider to be an Iranian-made drone Shahed-136, after the Russian strike on Monday. (Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters)

The drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, are labeled “kamikaze” after the Japanese pilots from World War II who were sent on suicide missions.

Fragments of what appeared to be a drone were posted to Twitter by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser at the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

How do they operate?

Against a backdrop of a flaming explosion behind a wooden fence, a passerby lifts an arm against the blast, as a man lies on the ground.
A man lies on the ground in Kyiv after a blast from the drone attack. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images)

Analysts said the drones are believed to carry an “explosive warhead” and are guided through a “pre-programmed flight profile using a global navigation satellite system.”

“The AV (aerial vehicle) does not feature landing gear, suggesting the use of a trailer or platform for multiple launches,” an analyst said. “The AV is intentionally expendable but is believed to be recovered by parachute.”

One key advantage of using drones is that they are cheaper than conventional missiles. Speaking to ABC News, Samuel Bendett, an expert on Russian UAVs, said: “The whole point of using these Shaheds is to send them in waves, to stress Ukrainian air defenses, to have them expend ammunition, to keep people on edge.”

Beside two official cars with blue-and-yellow Ukrainian markings, parked on a road not far from two tower blocks, three marksmen fire into the air.
Ukrainian soldiers target a drone that appears in the sky seconds before firing on buildings in Kyiv on Monday. (Vadym Sarakhan/AP)

This is not the first time these drones have been used. “Iranians have used Shahed-136 in several instances, including the attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities in Abqaiq–Khurais during 2019,” the Janes analyst told Yahoo News.

Who supplied Russia with the drones?

A number of Western officials, as well as members of the Ukrainian government, have accused Iran of supplying drones to Russia.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in black hat and robe, seated at a microphone, with an Iranian flag in the background.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Oct. 12. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA /Handout via Reuters)

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted that Iran had been responsible for “the murders of Ukrainians. Country that oppresses its own people is now giving ru-monsters [Russians] weapons for mass murders in the heart of Europe.”

However, Iran has denied providing Russia with drones. “The published news about Iran providing Russia with drones has political ambitions, and it’s circulated by Western sources,” the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said. “We have not provided weaponry to any side of the countries at war.”

Could Iran be punished for supplying drones to Russia?

A police officer writes on a pad, looking at a body bag placed in a long container on a debris-strewn street, with an emergency vehicle in the background.
A police officer stands next to the body of a man killed in the drone attack in Kyiv on Monday. (Roman Hrytsyna/AP)

The U.S. State Department said it had agreed with British and French assessments that Iran’s reported sale of drones to Russia violated sanctions set by the United Nations. The assessment stated that the drones broke U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the deal between Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.S. that limited Tehran's uranium enrichment activity.

“It is our belief that these UAVs that were transferred from Iran to Russia and used by Russia in Ukraine are among the weapons that would remain embargoed under 2231," Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesperson, said.

“Anyone doing business with Iran, that can have any link to UAVs or ballistic missile developments or the flow of arms from Iran to Russia, should be very careful and do their due diligence.” He added: “The U.S. will not hesitate to use sanctions.”