Developed so fast, and meeting Ukraine’s defence needs almost exactly, the missile seems too good to be true. Some competitors wonder if it is just that. Rumours persist over alleged proximity to the presidential office, non-competitive financing, and whether the missile is even Ukrainian.

Shaheds are not Russian, probably weren’t “competitively financed” and came from a deal between Putin and Iranian leadership where Russia didn’t hold up its side of the bargain.

Yet they are one of the biggest threats Ukraine faces today. I doubt that Russian air defence can sue that “this wasn’t fair”.

The missile is bulky and climbs steeply at launch, making it more visible to enemy radar, so the assumption is that a large percentage of them will be spotted and intercepted. “At full range, a Russian fighter jet has enough time to be taking smoking breaks,” quips a competitor.

So it’s a… cruise missile? All of them do that to extend range as the faster you can get to higher altitudes with thinner air, they are not particularly fast compared to air defence, if there is decent air defence in the area they will get intercepted, just as Russian ones, or American ones for that matter.

The thing is, Russia is hella big, so it makes it harder to defend, so the MiG-35s that were lobbing glide bombs at Ukraine will need to go home and get back to being interceptors, or random shit will start exploding. It’s not a silver bullet, it’s basically “Ukraine has Tomahawks now” which will change the calculus on a bunch of stuff.