Russia's Shahed drones got more dangerous with China's help — WSJ
Photo: Russia continues to improve the Shahed drones (Getty Images)
The new jet-powered versions of the Shahed drones, which Russia is using for massive attacks on Ukraine, are capable of reaching speeds of up to 500 km/h. This is roughly three times faster than previous drone models, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The emergence of the new Shahed drones was made possible in large part by China.
Chinese companies supplied engines and other components for these drones.
According to current and former US officials, Beijing has long remained the main source of components for the Shaheds. This includes, in particular, servo motors and gyroscopes.
The WSJ notes that it is precisely thanks to this international supply chain that Iran was able to develop the production of inexpensive attack drones, which Russia subsequently began to use on a massive scale against Ukraine.
One of the main challenges for Iranian engineers was to develop an engine capable of operating at high speeds and under extreme temperatures for several hours. They based their design on the German L 550 E engine manufactured by Limbach Flugmotoren.
In 2012, a Chinese company began selling Limbach engines, and in 2017, it fully acquired the German manufacturer. This facilitated Iran's access to such power units. Subsequently, Iran developed its own version of the engine based on Limbach models, but used inexpensive Chinese components.
The Chinese company Telefly Telecommunications Equipment is mentioned separately. Ukrainian authorities have stated that it manufactures turbojet engines. After Ukraine reported the discovery of Telefly engines in Russian drones, information about turbojet engines disappeared from the English-language version of the company’s website.
Despite this, references to the product remain on the Chinese-language and other language versions of the website, as well as on the pages of other Chinese online retailers.
Incidentally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently called on China to calm Putin down following his latest threats.
Recently, Beijing demanded that Russia and Ukraine cease hostilities.
