China's jet engine powers Russia's deadly Geran-5: Should India worry if similar tech reaches Pakistan? EXPLAINED

A Chinese-made turbojet powers Russia’s Geran-5 attack drone, which has wreaked havoc across Ukraine. These jet-powered drones have gravely outfoxed Ukraine's highly effective air defences. Ukrainian intelligence has opened up Russia's Geran-5 K5K, and what they found inside has raised eyebrows.

Its newer variant carries a camera that helps it stay on course even when satellite navigation is jammed. Ukraine identified a Telefly TF-TJ2000A engine in the standard Geran-5, which it says cruises at 400 to 450 kilometres per hour. Its onboard computer compares images from the camera with stored reference images of the terrain. That gives the weapon another way to navigate towards its target if it loses its satellite signal.

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Retired Major General Ravi Chaudhary, a former National Technical Research Organisation scientist and the Indian Army’s former Chief Signals Officer at Northern Command, told WION’s Defence Pulse that Russia had adapted a technique already used in cruise missiles. The combination of radio-frequency and optical guidance, he said, makes the drone harder to counter. Defenders may disrupt one way of navigating while the weapon can still use the other.

For India, Gen. Chaudhary said the Chinese components raise a question about where similar technology could turn up next. “If China has the technology, Pakistan will get it,” he said, arguing that India should prepare for that possibility. The Ukrainian findings establish the presence of Chinese components in Russia’s weapons. Gen. Chaudhary was assessing the risk of similar technology reaching Pakistan.

That concern came into focus at Air Force Station Bagdogra in West Bengal, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh recently flagged drone swarms among emerging threats on November 7. Bagdogra sits near the Siliguri Corridor, the narrow land link between India’s Northeast and the rest of the country, known as the Chicken’s Neck. Asked whether the venue gave the Defence Minister's warning added significance, Gen. Chaudhary said, “We can look at it both ways,” before explaining the defence challenge in the surrounding hills.

Mountain ridges can hide incoming drones from ground radar, he said, while also limiting the routes attackers can take. Gen. Chaudhary suggested placing some sensors higher up, spreading cheaper ones across radar blind spots and combining their feeds so crews can distinguish real threats from decoys. And once a drone is detected, he argued, India needs the means to physically intercept it. “EW is not enough,” he said.