Ukrainian Military Downs and Dismantles Russian-Launched Iranian Drone: Engine from Czech, Satellite Navigation from Canada and US

The Ukrainian armed forces have managed to neutralize the Shahed-238 Iranian combat drone used by Russia during one of the recent attacks on Ukraine in January this year. Analysing the wreckage of the device, experts discovered a number of Western components inside it, reports Defence Express.

Specifically, inside the drone, they found a PBS Velká Bíteš engine of Czech production, providing the unmanned aerial vehicle with a cruising speed of up to 520 km/h.

For receiving satellite navigation signals, a block of four TW1721 antennas from the Canadian company Tallysman is used. And the processing of these signals is implemented on microchips from Analog Devices and Intel, and a microcontroller from NXP USA Inc., all manufactured in the United States.

The inertial navigation block is also built using Western electronics, utilizing microcontrollers from STMicroelectronics (Switzerland) and an inertial measurement unit from Analog Devices (USA).

The flight control and regulation module of the Shahed-238 are based on a microcontroller from Texas Instruments (USA).

Thus, the Iranian Shahed-238 is almost entirely assembled from foreign components available on the civilian market. At the same time, the process of getting such items into Iran, which is under sanctions, is quite intriguing for further research.

It should be noted that the Shahed-238, an Iranian-made drone, is an enhanced version of the Shahed-136 kamikaze drone used by Russia in the war against Ukraine. Its significant improvement over the Shahed-136 is its ability to autonomously navigate to its targets. This feature enhances the operational flexibility of the drone compared to manual control required by the previous prototype. This improvement increases the range of the Iranian drone's flight and reduces the need for relay stations near the target.

Recall that on the night of February 7, Russia launched a massive missile strike against Ukraine. The aggressor country targeted six regions of Ukraine, launching 64 cruises and ballistic missiles, as well as dozens of kamikaze drones. Ukrainian air defence destroyed 44 enemy targets, including 29 missiles and 15 combat UAVs.