Night by night, the blitz develops. Russian drones, decoys, cruise and ballistic missiles – increasingly aimed at a single city or location – are being launched in record numbers into Ukraine, straining the country’s ability to defend itself and raising questions about how well it can endure another winter of war.
One day earlier this month, 728 drones and 13 missiles were launched, mostly at the western city of Lutsk, home to many Ukrainian airfields. Large salvoes now come more frequently: every three to five days, rather than every 10 to 12, and civilian casualties are rising: 232 people were killed in June, the highest monthly level for three years.
A 1,000-drone attack is anticipated shortly and last weekend a German army major general, Christian Freuding, predicted that the Kremlin’s ambition was to attack Ukraine with “2,000 drones simultaneously”. Production of drones and missiles has improved, as have Russian tactics.
Not only are the drones unleashed in larger swarms, with dozens of decoys included, but they are also being flown either much lower or at much higher altitudes, sometimes in a stack to fool the defenders before swooping down steeply to their target. The additional height takes them beyond the range of mobile Ukrainian gunners, whose job has been to shoot them down, relatively cheaply.
Analyses of Ukrainian air force data show that more drones are getting through: from close to 5% in March and April to between 15% and 20% in May and June. Russia is also using its Shahed drones more intelligently, analysts say, to open a path for faster and more dangerous cruise and ballistic missiles because the 50kg (110lb) explosive normally carried by a Shahed only does a relatively limited amount of damage.
Designed in Iran, the delta-winged Shahed 136s are now made in Russia, where they are known as Geran-2s. At least two factories have been identified, one in Izhevsk, and most notably in Yelabuga, more than 700 miles from Ukraine. The modern-looking assembly line was shown off on Russian television a few days ago, with dozens of distinctive fibreglass and carbon-fibre frames positioned to sinister effect in the background.
“The Shahed problem has been foreseeable for some time. Russia has been asking itself: ‘What will be the T-34 of this war?’” said Jack Watling, a military expert with the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, referring to the tank that is considered by some to have helped the Soviets defeat the Nazis in the second world war.
Watling said the issue uppermost in the minds of Russian planners was: “What is the technology that we can invest in that is good and cheap enough and delivers decisive results?”
Two of these are Shahed drones and Iskander missiles in which, he said, Russia has invested heavily in trying to deliver a long-term military-industrial victory.
In the Russian video of the Yelabuga plant, the narrator says that teenagers as young as 15 are invited to work at the factory, coming from a nearby technical college, such has been the Kremlin’s focus on trying to keep costs down. The Russian version of the Shahed 136 is cheap, costing roughly between $50,000 (£37,000) to $100,000 each, according to Samuel Bendett, a drone expert with the Centre for Naval Analyses thinktank.
At the same time, component and manufacturing equipment supply for Shaheds has improved. “China is more directly providing components to Russia,” said Kateryna Stepanenko, from the Institute for the Study of War, probably aided by a direct rail link to China near Yelabuga. “Integration of Chinese components, where before there was supply from Iran, means the manufacturers now have a lot more available parts,” she said.
In Ukraine, there is nervousness. Concern about the available air defence has prompted renewed public lobbying from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for US Patriot air defence systems, and a promise from Germany to pay for five more. But Patriots are only cost-effectively used against cruise and ballistic missiles, not Shaheds, because the modern PAC-3 interceptor missiles cost about $4m each.
There has been a sustained effort in developing cheap drones to knock out the Shaheds, although details about the counter-drone efforts remain relatively scarce online, partly because the effort is concealed by operational security. A prominent Ukrainian fundraiser, Serhii Sternenko, said a fortnight ago that more than 100 air targets had been shot down as part of his foundation’s “Shahedoriz” project.
That suggests modest progress. Watling argues the problem at the moment is that “the technology exists but they have not scaled production of them yet”. That may be solved by a partnership announced by Zelenskyy with Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt earlier this month to produce “interceptor drones”, though again details are scant.
At the same time, in the last month Ukrainian officials have been trying to restart efforts to lobby European powers to police the skies over the west of the country. One initiative, Sky Shield, proposed in March, suggested that 120 fighter jets could effectively engage in defensive air policing west of the Dnipro River – but this idea was only deemed practical after a ceasefire that Russia has refused to agree to.
Though air policing has formed part of plans for a post-conflict “reassurance force” led by the UK and France, there has so far been no appetite for western nations to step forward and protect Ukrainian airspace for fears it would lead to a direct conflict between a Nato country and Russia. “It’s so frustrating: countries send people to fight in Afghanistan for how long to defend from what – but nobody wants to help Ukraine better defend its skies,” said one source involved in the renewed effort.
While there is not much confidence in diplomacy, the balance in the battle of the skies has tipped towards Russia. That could become more ominous if, in the coming weeks, Moscow makes a determined effort to target Ukraine’s electricity grid and utility networks before winter.
For now, the heightened level of missile and drone attacks demonstrates that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, “remains committed to his goals to have Ukraine surrender and capitulate”, said Stepanenko. “This war is certainly not a stalemate.”
