Geran-5 K5

Overview

The Geran-5 K5 is a newer version of the Geran-5, the jet attack drone built by Alabuga. It differs in two ways. Its turbojet sits inside the rear fuselage instead of in a pod on top, and it carries an optical navigation module that lets it find its way without satellite signals. Russian sources call the system “Susanin” (Сусанин).

The name K5 comes from a Ukrainian monitoring channel, Colonel GSh, which reported the version on 27 September 2026. Militarnyi noted the same day that neither the name nor the module had been officially confirmed. On 5 October Ukrainian outlets, Texty among them, quoted HUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence, as saying the same navigation principle is used “on the new Geran-5s of the K5 version”. HUR has not published a component list for it; its Geran-5 parts list still shows no optical unit.

Optical navigation

The module is of the type known as OEKS in Russian and DSMAC in the West: a camera looks down, and the computer compares what it sees with reference images stored before launch, correcting the drone’s position as it goes. Defense Express, cited by UNITED24 Media, compares it with the Otblesk-U system of the Kh-101 cruise missile. With it the drone does not need a constant link to an operator, and jamming its satellite receiver matters less. UNN reports that it works more accurately by day than at night, as a camera would.

Photos published by Colonel GSh show the round housing of the module and a label on a recovered unit reading “Блок FCU Г5 K5-K Сусанин”: flight controller unit, G5, K5-K, Susanin. The flight controller of the first Geran-5 that HUR documented in January carries the marking “Г5”.

On 5 October HUR documented a Susanin unit on an updated Geran-4, so the module is not unique to this drone. defence-network.com points out that it is listed for the Geran-4 and not for the Geran-5.

Airframe and engine

Colonel GSh describes a redesigned fuselage. Interceptor footage released by the SBU and the Wild Hornets group in September showed Geran-5s with the engine inside the rear fuselage and only an intake on top (Militarnyi). Analyst Anatolii Khrapchynskyi told TSN that the external pod “works as an aerodynamic brake”, and that the extra speed is likely paid for in range. Colonel GSh said the K5 is faster than both the Geran-4 and the standard Geran-5, fast enough to be mistaken for Ukraine’s Dan-T jet missiles.

What remains unknown

• Whether every internal-engine Geran-5 is a K5, or the two changes arrived separately.
• The K5’s warhead and range: no figures have been published.
• Whether HUR will add the optical unit to its Geran-5 record once it has a complete example.