Parodiya

A plywood and foam aircraft carrying no warhead and a metal-coated sphere in its fuselage. The Luneburg lens inside makes it read on radar as a Shahed-sized attack drone, so Ukrainian air defence must treat every one as potentially lethal. That obligation is the entire weapon.

Overview

The Parodiya ("Parody") is a Russian decoy unmanned aircraft designed for a single purpose: to appear on radar as something far more dangerous than it is. It carries no explosive payload. Its operative component is a Luneburg lens — a dielectric sphere with a radially graded refractive index that retroreflects incoming radar energy back toward its source, multiplying the apparent radar cross-section of a small, cheap airframe until it resembles a Shahed-136 or Geran-type strike drone.

Ukraine's Defence Intelligence describes it as smaller and cheaper than a Geran while presenting a comparable radar signature. It is distinct from the Gerbera, the other Russian cheap-drone line, in both airframe and function: the Gerbera is a delta-wing multi-role platform that mimics a Shahed by physical resemblance and can be armed, scout or relay, while the Parodiya is a high-wing aircraft that is a decoy and nothing else, achieving its deception electronically rather than geometrically.

Since late 2024 it has been a fixture of Russian strike packages, named separately from Shahed and Gerbera drones in nearly every Ukrainian Air Force nightly tally.

🔒 The full Parodiya file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Below the line: development history, design and capabilities, variants, the combat record, advantages and limitations, comparable systems, outlook, the full specifications table, our sourcing, and the analyst assessment — procurement, suppliers and the BattlePolicy verdict. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →