Ukraine has accused Russia of using Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones to carry out its deadly attack on Kyiv during rush hour yesterday.
Andrii Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said Iranian-made Shahed drones were among those used against Kyiv yesterday.
Four people died when a residential building was hit, including a six-month pregnant woman, her husband, an older woman and a man, according to Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko.
Kyiv was hit for the second time after being struck last Monday in retaliation for an earlier attack on a Crimea bridge, which left the strategic link between the Russian-annexed peninsula and mainland Russia severely destroyed.
Klitschko said yesterday’s barrage came in successive waves of 28 drones – in what many fear could become a more common mode of attack as Russia seeks to avoid depleting its stockpiles of long-range precision missiles.
Russia had mainly used missiles since launching its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, but Kyiv has reported a spate of Russian attacks using Shahed-136 suicide drones in recent weeks.
Iran denies supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin has not commented.
“The published news about Iran providing Russia with drones has political ambitions and it’s circulated by Western sources. We have not provided weaponry to any side of the countries at war,” said Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani.
The term kamikaze was a practice used by the Japanese during World War Two which would see military aircraft being loaded with explosives to result in a suicide crash on an enemy target.
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The Iranian-made Shaheds have earned the nickname for their ability to destroy a target by crashing into it.
The Shahed-136 packs an explosive charge and can carry about 36kg in weight. They are also capable of precision targeting and can linger over targets before nosediving into them.
They can be launched from the back of a truck with a range reported to be up to 1,500 miles, according to the New York Times, meaning they can be launched far from the front.
Iranian-made drones have been repeatedly used by Russia elsewhere in Ukraine in recent weeks to target urban centers and infrastructure, including power stations.
They are comparatively cheap, costing in the region of $20,000 (£17,500) – a fraction of the cost of a Kalibr cruise missile that Russia has used widely in Ukraine, which costs the Russian military about $1m each.
Their use in swarms presents a challenge to Ukrainian air defences, said Yurii Ihnat, the spokesman of Ukraine’s air force.
Western nations have promised to bolster Ukrainian air defences with systems that can shoot down drones but much of that weaponry is yet to arrive and, in some cases, may be months away.
“The challenges are serious, because the air defense forces and means are the same as they were at the beginning of the war,” Ihnat said. Some air defence weaponry supplied by Western nations can only be used during daylight hours when targets are visible, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing Ukrainian intelligence services, has previously alleged that Russia has ordered 2,400 of the Shahed drones from Iran.
Russia has rebranded them as Geran-2 drones – meaning geranium in Russian.