KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At a secret factory in Russia's central grasslands, engineers are manufacturing hundreds of decoy drones intended to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses as they try to protect against a horrific new weapon, an Associated Press investigation finds .
The factory in Russia's Alabuga Special Economic Zone recently started producing thermobaric drones in addition to the decoys, the study found. The thermobaric warheads create a vortex of high pressure and heat that can penetrate thick walls. They suck up all the oxygen in their path and have a fearsome reputation for the injuries they sustain even outside the site of the initial explosion: collapsed lungs, shattered eyeballs, brain damage.
Russia came up with the decoy plan in late 2022, calling it Operation False Target, according to a person familiar with Russian drone production who spoke on condition of anonymity because the industry is highly sensitive. The idea was to launch armed drones along with dozens of decoys, sometimes filled with rags or foam, and indistinguishable on radar from drones carrying real bombs. Ukrainian armed forces must make split-second decisions on how to deploy scarce resources to save lives and preserve critical infrastructure.
“The idea was to create a drone that would create a feeling of complete uncertainty among the enemy. “So he doesn't know if it's actually a deadly weapon…or essentially a foam toy,” the person said. With the thermobarics, there is now a “major risk” that an armed drone could veer off course and end up in a residential area where the “damage will simply be terrifying”, he said.
The Russian drone factory
Dozens of decoys have filled Ukrainian airspace in recent weeks, each appearing as an indistinguishable blip on military radar screens. During the first weekend of November, the Kiev region was under an air raid alert for 20 hours, and the sound of buzzing drones mixed with the roar of air defenses and gunfire.
Unarmed decoys now make up more than half of drones targeting Ukraine, according to the person and Serhii Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian electronics expert whose black military van is equipped with electronic jammers to shoot down drones.
Both the unarmed decoys and the armed Iranian-designed Shahed drones are being built at a factory in Russia's Alabuga Special Economic Zone, an industrial complex established in 2006 about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow to attract business and investment to Tatarstan. It expanded after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and some sectors switched to military production, adding new buildings and renovating existing sites, according to satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press.
In videos on social media, the factory promotes itself as an innovation center. But David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said Alabuga's current purpose is purely to produce and sell drones to the Russian Defense Ministry. The videos and other promotional media were removed after an AP investigation found that many of the African women recruited to fill the labor shortage there complained they had been tricked into taking jobs at the factory.
Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal for the Shaheds in 2022 after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and Moscow began using Iranian imports of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in combat later that year. Shortly after the deal was signed, production began in Alabuga.
In October, Moscow attacked with at least 1,889 drones — 80% more than in August, according to an AP analysis that tracked the drones for months. On Saturday, Russia launched 145 drones across Ukraine, just days after Donald Trump's re-election cast doubt on US support for the country.
Most drones have crashed, shot down or been diverted by electronic jamming since the summer, according to an AP analysis of Ukrainian military briefings. According to data AP has analyzed since late July, fewer than 6% met an observable target. But the numbers alone mean a handful can slip through every day – and that's enough to be fatal.
Swarms of drones every day
The swarms have become a demoralizing event for Ukrainians.
Russian drone tactics continue to evolve. Now more powerful missiles often follow close behind, as air defenses are depleted by the drones. The most destructive are the ballistic and cruise missiles that fly many times faster than the drones, which buzz loudly and can be followed with the naked eye.
Even the decoys could be useful to Russia. A single decoy with a live feed camera allows the aircraft to geolocate Ukrainian air defenses and relay the information to Russia in the final moments of its mechanical life.
Night after night, Ukrainian snipers spring into action to shoot down the drones with portable surface-to-air missiles.
One sniper, who like most Ukrainian soldiers asked to be identified by his call sign Rosmaryn, said he has shot down perhaps a dozen drones in almost two years and seen one filled with rags and foam. Rosmaryn sees his opponent in almost human terms, describing the plane's quest to outwit his small unit.
“It was part of a flock and was one of the last to fly,” he said. “If it's in the air, we can't tell what kind it is because everything is in the drone. We won't find out until after it's shot.'
Many fly at 2,000 to 3,000 meters (6,500 feet to about 10,000 feet) before dropping to lower altitudes on their final approach, Rosmaryn said. Leaked videos suggest Ukraine is now using helicopters to shoot down drones at high altitudes.
Three decoys of Russian origin crashed in Moldova last week, authorities there said.
Thanks to optical trickery, the radar cannot distinguish a drone armed with a Shahed's usual 50-kilogram payload of explosives or with a thermobaric weapon – also known as a vacuum bomb – from drones without a warhead or equipped with live-feed surveillance cameras. There are other drones of even cruder quality, armed and unarmed, but in fewer quantities than the Shahed-style unmanned aerial vehicles.
That is why Ukraine, even knowing that decoys now make up the bulk of the incoming flock, cannot afford to let anything through.
“For us it's just a point on the radar… It has speed, direction and altitude,” said Colonel Yurii Ihnat, air force spokesman. “We have no way to identify the exact target in flight, so we have to either block them with electronic warfare or use firepower to neutralize them. The enemy uses this to distract our attention.”
The engines and electronics for the armed Shaheds and decoys are a mix of Chinese and Western imports, according to excerpts seen by The Associated Press in a Ukrainian military laboratory. Without them, the drones cannot fly. Despite almost three years of sanctions, Moscow can still source the parts – largely from China and through third countries in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Midway through the series of air warnings on November 2, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the swarms of Shaheds, which he estimated at 2,000 for the month of October alone, were made possible by Western technology slipping through sanctions.
“Included in these many Shaheds are more than 170,000 components that should have been blocked from delivery to Russia. Microcircuits, microcontrollers, processors, many different parts, without which this terror would simply be impossible,” Zelenskyy said.
The joint production of the drones – some to carry bombs, others to distract attention – saves Russia's military money. Production of the decoys began earlier this year and now the factory produces about 40 of the cheaper unarmed drones per day and about 10 armed drones, which are estimated to cost $50,000 and take longer to produce, according to the person with knowledge of the Russian drone production .
Russian news channel Izvestia said in late October that the decoy's goal is to “weaken” the enemy by forcing him to waste ammunition before sending armed Shaheds.
Both Beskrestnov and the person familiar with Russian drone production said engineers at Alabuga are also constantly experimenting, putting Moscow at the forefront of drone production. To make electronic interference more difficult, they add Ukrainian SIM cards, roaming SIM cards, Starlinks and fiber optics – and can sometimes receive real-time feedback before the drones get stuck, shot down or run out of fuel. Sometimes they attach a silver-painted foam ball to make the drone appear larger on a radar.
But the latest thermobaric variant is causing new fears in Ukraine.
Thermobaric fears
From a military point of view, thermobarics are ideal for pursuing targets located in fortified buildings or deep underground.
Alabuga's thermobaric drones are particularly destructive when they hit buildings because they are also loaded with ball bearings to do maximum damage even outside of the superheated blast, Albright said.
Beskrestnov, better known as Flash and whose black military van is equipped with electronic jammers to disable drones, said the thermobarics were used for the first time this summer and estimates they now account for between 3% and 5% of all drones.
“This type of warhead has the ability to destroy a huge building, especially apartment buildings. And it is very effective when the Russian Federation tries to attack our power plants,” he said.
They have a terrifying reputation for their physical consequences, even for people captured outside the original explosion site, said Arthur van Coller, an expert in international humanitarian law at South Africa's University of Fort Hare.
“In a thermobaric explosion, because of the cloud it would create, everything in its radius would be affected,” he said. “It creates enormous fear among the civilian population. Thermobaric weapons have created the idea that they are truly terrible weapons and that creates fear.”
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Burrows reports from Washington DC Stephen McGrath contributed from Sighisoara, Romania.
