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THE BACKUSARSGPS GSIM EWEW KAB Your browser does not support the element. of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise does not seem an unmissable attraction, especially on a damp winter morning. But for weapons experts and intelligence types, the place is a major draw. Fragments of Russian missiles, drones—some of them almost wholly intact—and artillery shells lie on the ground, overlooked by rows of Soviet-era apartment blocks.Inside nearby shipping containers, Ukrainian researchers are dissecting the wreckage of the weapons with pliers and screwdrivers, and recording what they extract, especially components sourced from abroad. The catalogue, a sobering reminder of Russia’s ability to bypass Western sanctions, grows by the day. “Here is a block, Japanese, Sony company, here’s the Shahed launch button, Bosch,” says Andriy Kulchytskyi, the head of the laboratory. “Here’s a Chinese engine with a screw that says, Made in the .”Some of the latest arrivals are charred bits of the Oreshnik, a new Russian missile, which the institute’s experts are cleaning and untangling. Russia fired the Oreshnik against Ukraine in November, the first known use of a multi-warhead weapon in combat. Vladimir Putin has since threatened to do so again, against Kyiv, boasting that Ukraine’s air defences are no match for the nuclear-capable missile. He bills the “hypersonic” Oreshnik as a new marvel of Russian technology. But its remains tell a different story. One part dates from 2017. Another, inside one of the missile’s warheads, dates to 2016. This would confirm suspicions that the Oreshnik is no more than a souped-up version of an older model, the -26 Rubezh intermediate-range ballistic missile.Rather than a major threat, the Oreshnik is a show of force, made with a Western audience in mind, and a reminder of Russia’s nuclear capacity. For Ukraine, a more pressing concern is the new Shahed-136 suicide drone, which Russia is now producing at home having previously relied on imports from Iran. To date, Ukraine has been able to divert or intercept more than 80% of the drones. Very few have managed to strike Kyiv’s centre. But the Shaheds are becoming more resistant to spoofing or jamming, Ukrainian engineers say.Upgrades have also made the Shaheds faster, more manoeuvrable and capable of flying higher. A wake-up call came on January 1st, in one of the biggest drone attacks since the start of the invasion, when at least two Shaheds were able to breach Kyiv’s Pechersky district, home to the government quarter. One of them smashed into a building only 150 metres from the presidency building. Two people died.The earlier Shaheds used technology to navigate. Many of those now being used are packed with 4 data modems and Ukrainian cards, which allow them to travel using Ukrainian cell-phone towers, as well as Chinese satellite navigation antennas. This makes them more accurate and capable of dodging Ukrainian electronic-warfare () defences. Recent reports indicate some may be equipped with artificial intelligence, which Russia hopes to use to launch autonomous drone salvos. “In the near future,” says Anatoly (not his real name), a Ukrainian engineer, “our systems may not be able to affect the flights of the Shaheds at all.”He and others are also seeing an increase in the use of Russian parts. At the start of the war the Kalibr, one of Russia’s most destructive cruise missiles, used mostly Western electronic components. Today, most of what the researchers call the Kalibr’s “brains” come from Russia.China is making up for the shortfall, says Anatoly. He picks up a servo motor found in a Russian guided bomb, produced by a Chinese company but falsely labelled as German. “Almost everything you see here”, he says, “has a huge number of Chinese elements.” Western sanctions are always one step behind, he says. “It’s impossible to control what the Chinese have handed over to the Russians.”To Anatoly, the wreckage gathered in his lab is a treasure trove. His one complaint is that Ukraine does not have enough people to reverse-engineer some of the weapons Russia has been dropping on its cities. “Our main task is to technologically outpace the Russians,” he says. “But our best guys are in the trenches.”
