A manufacturing plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region has significantly scaled up its production of Iranian-designed drones, using a range of Chinese components, and recruiting a low-skilled workforce of Russian teenagers and African women,

In 2023, the factory produced 2,738 Shahed drones, and by the first nine months of 2024, it more than doubled this output, manufacturing 5,760 drones. According to anonymous sources, the factory is also assembling thousands of “fake” drones aimed at exhausting Ukraine’s air defense systems.

Russian forces launched 31 drones of various types at Ukraine. Most of them were shot down by air defense, reports the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "On the night of December 26, the enemy attacked with 31 strike UAVs of the Shahed type and other drones from the directions of Oryol and Millerovo,