In Russia, the production of "Shaheds" and imitators of this drone reached about 170 units per day as of May 2025. By the end of the year, the figure is planned to be increased to 190 drones per day. Main Intelligence Directorate told that to "Defence".
At the same time, not only the number of these strike drones is changing, but also the technology of the UAV. The configurations of the "Shaheds" in 2022 and 2025 are significantly different. The GUR said that in the last year alone, several key changes have been made to the drone's design.
One of them is a significant modification of the warheads. In addition to the standard high-explosive and high-explosive fragmentation, the "Shaheds" can now be equipped with combined high-explosive-fragmentation and high-explosive-incendiary warheads. That is, different types of warheads are selected for specific targets for greater damage.
Secondly, the mass of explosives in UAVs has increased – from 50 to 90 kg. Thirdly, some drones are now equipped with Starlink terminals. This allows you to control drones in real time.
In addition, foreign journalists recently reported on the possibility of connecting the "Shaheds" to the Ukrainian mobile network. The Economist wrote that thanks to Ukrainian SIM cards, Russian drones are controlled via Telegram bots. But soon, Ukrainian specialist in military radio technologies Serhiy Flesh denied this information.
The technology for countering electronic warfare (EW) is also evolving on the Shahed. The enemy has begun to protect its signal receivers with special CRPA antennas – they are able to ignore false satellite signals.
As you know, Russia received the first hundreds of "Shaheds" from Iran back in 2022. In the summer of 2023, the Russian Federation began to independently produce such drones. The plant was built 1,200 km from the front line - in the special economic zone "Alabuga", in the city of Yelabuga. Here they produce a localized version of the Iranian drone - unmanned aerial vehicles called "Geran-2".
More details about this can be found in the article by "Defence" titled "Will there be 1,000 "Shaheeds" overnight? How Russia is increasing the production of kamikaze drones and strikes on Ukrainian cities."