Putin Unleashes Swarm of Nightmare Kamikaze Drones on Kyiv

Early Monday morning, residents of Kyiv described the inescapable, dystopian buzz of Iranian-made Shahed-136s attack drones—which fly low into the city, weaving around buildings and carrying precision missiles that prove impossible to stop.

The so-called kamikaze drones are a precise weapon shot from flatbed trucks—which leaves them vulnerable to anti-aircraft missiles as they are deployed, but they are stealthy enough to cause major damage once inside city limits. The horrifying buzzing is almost always followed by the sort of loud explosions that rocked the Ukrainian capital in the early hours of Monday morning, killing several, including a woman who was in her sixth month of pregnancy. The use of the weapons is a sign that Russia is running low on precision guided weapons, one analyst told The New York Times.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it was able to shoot down some of the terrifying drones, but some got through. Ukraine said nine of the drones were knocked out by an anti-aircraft missiles deployed by fighter jets and two were hit by forces on the ground. “In the past 13 hours, #UAarmy shot down 37 Iranian Shahed-136 drones and 3 cruise missiles launched by Russian terrorists,” the ministry tweeted.

The attack by those that made it into the capital killed at least three people and wounded 18, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. Several others were unaccounted and thought to be under rubble.