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Ukraine’s drone guru says the future of Russia’s Shahed warfare will be focused on speed

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Ukraine has enough interceptor drone manufacturers, and now needs to prepare for the next phase of defending against Russia’s Shaheds, a prominent drone analyst said on Tuesday.

The new tech battle is going to be all about speed, said Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, an influential Ukrainian drone expert, in a Telegram post.

“There is no need to become the ‘one hundred and first’ manufacturer of drones against the current Shaheds,” he wrote. “We need to work for the future.”

Beskrestnov, who was recently appointed an advisor to Ukraine’s defense ministry, said the race would emerge as Ukraine gradually improves the effectiveness of its interceptor drones.

Interceptor drones are small uncrewed aerial systems primarily designed by Ukrainians to fly into the Kremlin’s Gerans, Russia’s mass-produced versions of the Iranian Shahed drone.

The interceptors have become a core pillar of Ukraine’s air defense network, offering a more cost-effective way to counter hundreds-strong waves of Gerans. Popular types of interceptor drones can cost around $2,500 to $6,000 each.

Beskrestnov predicted that Russia would soon adapt in three ways: installing evasion systems on its Gerans, building reliable flight corridors for the loitering munitions, and manually piloting them at extremely low altitudes to evade air defenses.

“We will cope with this and all the enemy’s bets will be on speed,” Beskrestnov wrote.

Russia’s most commonly used Geran is the Geran-2, based on the Shahed-136 and capable of about 115 mph. However, Moscow is. increasingly deploying jet-powered versions of the drone, dubbed Geran-3s, that can fly at speeds of up to 200 mph.

Now, Beskrestnov says it’s likely Russia will try to push those Geran-3s to 250 mph. The newer Geran-5, which is similar to Iran’s Karrar drone, is also feared to be capable of reaching 370 mph.

“At one point, all our interceptor drones may turn out to be useless,” the analyst warned.

Ukraine’s interceptor drones are typically first-person-view propeller-driven systems. Local engineers incrementally improved their designs to fly reliably at around 220 mph, but will likely be limited in how far they can push these aircraft, which are often built with inexpensive off-the-shelf parts.

“If you are a manufacturer, I ask you to begin developing interception systems for strike UAVs at such speeds right now, while we still have time,” Beskrestnov wrote.

His call echoes Ukraine’s initial research into interceptor drones in early 2024, when the tech was primarily used to destroy Russian reconnaissance drones.

As drone engineers realized at the time that Ukraine needed an answer to Russia ramping up Geran production, they spent months preparing their designs in anticipation of the growing threat.

By 2025, their present form began to emerge on Ukrainian drone markets, until Kyiv eventually set a production goal of at least 1,000 a day. As 2026 rolls on, it remains to be seen whether that could drastically change.




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Target shifts away from being an ‘everything store’ in new strategy focused on ‘busy families’

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Target is betting on “busy families” to drive its turnaround.

On Tuesday, the retailers’ executives outlined changes to Target’s stores, app, and product selection that they said will improve financial results. At the center of it all are the needs of time-crunched moms and dads, they said.

The plan involves bolstering product selection and customer service in specific product categories, such as baby clothing and care, executives said Tuesday during a presentation at Target’s Minneapolis headquarters.

“Target is not an everything store,” CEO Michael Fiddelke said at the company’s annual financial meeting in Minneapolis. “That’s not what guests want from us.”

Funding many of the changes is an additional $1 billion in investments that Target plans to make this year, including “hundreds of millions” for store staffing and training, CFO Jim Lee said. That’s in addition to $1 billion in capital expenditures that Target announced last year.

The bullseye retailer is in critical need of a return to growth after coming off more than three years of flat or declining sales, Fiddelke said.

Target said on Tuesday that it expects to report net sales growth in each quarter of 2026 after posting a 1.7% decline for its fiscal year that ended on January 31.

Target bets on baby, grocery to get its groove back

The additional investments are meant to free up store employees to provide better customer service, Fiddelke said.

In baby care, Target is expanding its Cloud Island clothing brand and testing “baby concierges” helping customers shop, said Cara Sylvester, Target’s chief merchandising officer said at the meeting.

“This is about earning trust early and strengthening relationships that extend well beyond the baby aisle and beyond the baby life stage,” Sylvester said.

Groceries will also get more investment and floor space in Target’s stores, executives said.

John Conlin, Target’s SVP of food and beverage, told Business Insider that half of the retailer’s shoppers have food in their shopping baskets. That share rises during seasonal occasions and celebrations. The company is also plowing cash into a fresh supply chain to improve its offering of those products.

Target plans to open 30 new stores and fully remodel 130 existing ones in 2026, Lee said.

Those changes are meant to be an inflection point in Target’s strategy. “There will be more newness across the assortment in those stores in the next year than we’ve seen in any year in the last decade,” Fiddelke said.

It’s not the first time that Target has tried to differentiate itself from rivals, including Walmart, by offering a more curated offering.

Over the past few decades, Target partnered with big names in fashion to design some of its clothing and home decor. It also introduced snacks and groceries with sleek packaging that bucked the reputation of store-brand food as budget-focused.

In the last few years, though, some Target customers told Business Insider that the chain lost its reputation as a “nicer Walmart.” Foot traffic declined, and some stores started to look disheveled.

Executives acknowledged many of those shortcomings in Minneapolis on Tuesday — and said their investments are designed to reclaim Target’s old position in retail.

“We used to be strong in a pacesetter in a category like home,” Fiddelke said. “We haven’t been for the last few years.”

Fiddelke, who joined Target as a finance intern in 2003, is a company insider — a potential issue as he tries to execute a new strategy, some analysts who were expecting an outsider to execute the turnaround have said.

On Tuesday, the CEO aimed to sell his decades of experience at Target —and his own lived experience — as an asset.

“Having been in the shoes of a busy-parent household myself, sometimes you just need the very best of Target right to your doorstep,” Fiddelke said.




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Chong Ming Lee, Junior News Reporter at Business Insider's Singapore bureau.

Elon Musk said he’ll congratulate Blue Origin if they land on the moon before SpaceX — he’s focused on something else

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Elon Musk says he’s happy to lose one lunar milestone if it helps him win the bigger prize.

The SpaceX chief said in a post on X on Monday that he would congratulate Blue Origin if it lands on the moon before SpaceX, as his company focuses on a more ambitious goal: building a “self-growing city” on the moon.

“What really matters for the future is being able to land millions of tons of equipment and people to build a self-growing city on the moon,” Musk wrote. “In this respect, perhaps we are be more the tortoise than the hare for now,” he added.

Musk’s comments about SpaceX being more “tortoise than the hare” came in response to an X post by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, who shared a black-and-white image of a tortoise. The post on Monday appeared to be a nod to the tortoise-and-hare fable, framing Blue Origin as the slow-and-steady contender and SpaceX as the faster but more distracted rival.

Musk and Bezos have been rivals for years, frequently clashing over their space ambitions at SpaceX and Blue Origin, as well as over their fortunes.

After long touting Mars as SpaceX’s main destination, Musk said on Sunday that the company has shifted its focus to the moon.

“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” he wrote in a post on X.

“That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the moon is faster,” he added.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that SpaceX told investors it is targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed landing on the moon.

In a separate post on X, Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX would “continue to launch directly from Earth to Mars while possible, rather than moon to Mars.”

“Fuel is relatively scarce on the moon,” Musk added.

Musk previously said SpaceX would send an uncrewed mission to Mars by the end of 2026.

“No, we’re going straight to Mars. The moon is a distraction,” he said in January last year in response to a post on X.

Musk is known for rolling out bold timelines for projects such as electric vehicles — only to revise or abandon them later.

Bezos has long emphasised the moon as humanity’s next destination, and has taken aim at Musk’s push to colonize Mars.

“Go live on the top of Mount Everest for a year first and see if you like it, because it’s a garden paradise compared to Mars,” Bezos said in 2019.

During a presentation for project Blue Moon, Bezos included a slide about Mars with the title “FAR, FAR AWAY,” referencing SpaceX’s Mars ambition.

Blue Origin said previously it aimed to reach the moon by 2023 — a target it did not meet.




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