Gerbera

Design and capabilities

Gerbera is a Russian fixed-wing UAV built to resemble a Shahed-136/Geran-2 on radar and by eye, at a fraction of the cost. Industry estimates put its wingspan near 2.5 metres, its airframe built from foam and plywood, cruise speed around 160 km/h, and range between 300 and 600 kilometres. Unit cost is estimated near $10,000, roughly a fifth of a Shahed's. Early production units carried no warhead; navigation reportedly relies on a mix of 4G modem links and mesh networking rather than the costlier satellite guidance fitted to armed strike types. Origin is contested: a Russian social-media account has credited the Gastello Design Bureau, while Ukraine's Defence Intelligence attributes the design to Chinese company Skywalker Technology, which it says ships assembled kits to Russia's Alabuga drone factory for final integration.

Operational history

Russian forces first deployed Gerbera in July 2024, initially purely as a decoy meant to draw Ukrainian air-defence fire away from armed drones flying the same route. By November 2024, Ukraine's Defence Intelligence reported that decoys of this kind made up roughly half of the drones Russia was launching on a given night, and identified some Gerbera units fitted with warheads and reconnaissance payloads. The first confirmed direct strike by an armed Gerbera was documented in April 2025. On 5 August 2025, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service warned that warheads were becoming more common on recovered Gerbera wreckage and urged people not to approach downed units.

AirVeto context

A drone assessed as a Gerbera crashed near Majdan-Sełce in Poland's Lublin Voivodeship, about 50 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, on the night of 5–6 September 2025; a defence ministry spokesperson said it carried no military characteristics - that was not an official model confirmation, and the Gerbera identification rests on visual comparison and markings reported by journalists rather than a published forensic result. Three nights later, reportedly 19 to 23 drones including Gerbera and Shahed types entered Polish airspace in the largest incursion of the war; Dutch F-35s downed several, reportedly the first time NATO aircraft engaged targets over NATO airspace, though the exact count and "first engagement" framing rest on Militarnyi's reporting and would benefit from NATO or Polish defence-ministry corroboration. A further unidentified drone, presumed but not confirmed to be a Gerbera, was found on 12 March 2026 in a lignite mine near Gałczyce, roughly 170 kilometres west of Warsaw. Gerbera's cheap foam-and-plywood build and low-altitude flight profile make it one of the more wind-affected types AirVeto tracks along the Polish border.