For the first time, Ukraine is launching more long-range drone attacks than Russia. Published figures suggest that Russia sent 426 Shahed-type drones into Ukraine in July. Over the same period Ukraine hit back with over 520 drones.
Russia appears to be less effective at shooting down the attackers as the Ukrainian strikes appear to be causing greater economic damage on oil refineries and other targets. Ukraine may be gaining the advantage in the strategic war of long-range drone strikes – and President Zelensky promise more and better strike drones to come.
Russia’s Drone Offensive
Russia
ran through most of its stockpiles of ballistic and cruise long-range missiles in the first few months of the war. And while production has increased since 2022, Russia appears to be firing missiles at roughly the rate they are produced,
around 120 a month. While missiles are important due to their destructive effects, as seen in a
recent strike on a children’s hospital,, much of Russia’s long-range striking power is now in the form of drones. Their chief weapon is he Iranian-designed Shahed series, known in Russia as Geran, which are easy to produce and cost
as little at $20,000, compared to
a million or more for a missile.
Originally imported from in Iran, Shaheds are
increasingly produced under a licensing deal at a giant new facility in Alabuga, east of Moscow. The design
has been modified over the last two years but the basics are still much the same: a propeller-driven drone with an eight-foot wingspan cruising at around 110 mph and with a warhead of little over 100 pounds. Apart from low cost, Shahed’s major advantage is its range, which is over a thousand miles and
possibly as much as two thousand.
Russia typically fires waves of up to thirty Shaheds at a time. These are picked up by Ukraine’s
array of thousands of networked microphones listening for the drone’s distinctive ‘lawn mower’ engine sound, and in the hours it takes for them to reach the targets,
mobile anti-drone units with heavy machineguns and automatic cannon are moved into position. Many Shaheds are also brought down by surface-to-air missiles, while others are sent off course or crashing to the ground
by customized electronic warfare systems.
There are a couple of
other Russian long-range attack drones, but at present the vast majority of the incoming are Shahed types all are currently counted as Shaheds. Ukraine typically claims to shoot down 90% of the incoming Shahed and
sometimes 100%. There is no way of verifying this, and clearly Shaheds do still cause damage, but the threat does not appear to be growing. While there have been
warnings that Shahed production would rise steeply this year as the Alabuga facility ramped up production, numbers have been relatively stable.
Shahed Tracker, an analyst on X/Twitter who compiles data on Russian drone attacks, recorded around 380 Russian long-range drone attacks in both January and February, spiking
up to 601 in March, then back to 290, 314, and
336 in June. The total for July was 426.
Ukraine Strikes Back
In response, Ukraine has developed a wide array of different long-range attack drones – analyst HI Sutton has identified
no less than 22 different models, from converted light aircraft to custom-made jet-propelled attack drones. Most, however, are designed to be as simple, cheap and effective as possible, without regards to appearance, like the
Drainpipe Drone first seen in April. Some from known sources, mainly Ukrainian startups and groups
raising funds for their projects, many are mysterious and known only from debris recovered in Russia.
In 2023 Ukraine was
producing just “dozens” of Shahed-type drones per month according to defence industry officials. Attacks,
though often high profile, were small scale. That has changed. Mass attacks are increasingly common, sometimes alongside strikes by Storm Shadow or other missiles supplied by Western allies.
All we know about Ukrainian drone attacks comes from Russian officials as the Ukrainians do not talk about them. No one body in Russia issues daily tallies the way the
Ukrainian Air Force does with Shahed and missile attacks but statements are issued by local governors and military offices.
Over the last month , on the
5th July the Russian Ministry of Defense “confirmed that its forces destroyed 50 Ukrainian drones within Russian territory”,
on 9th July there were 38, on
11th July it was 75,
on July 18th, another 33
on July 20th it was 26, and
on 22nd July they shot down 80 drones. There were another 20 on
the 27th, 41 on
the 29th and 19 on
the 31st, plus smaller numbers on eleven other days.
These Russian numbers cannot be confirmed and may nor may not represent the total number of drones launched. While the rate of shootdowns claimed is even greater than the Ukrainian claims, there is no sign of the sort of coordinated counter-drone network of sensors and weapons seen in Ukraine.
With these caveats, based statements by Russian state bodies, Ukraine has launched over 524 one-way attack drones in July compared to under 200 in each of the previous two months. This looks like the first month where the Ukrainian total has exceeded the Russian one.
Precision Targeting
There is little information on what Russian drones are targeting, though reports of blackouts and electrical issues suggest that
strikes on Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure continue. Ukraine is reported to have lost
roughly half of its 18 Gigawatt capacity and there is an urgent program to
rebuild before winter.
The Ukrainian campaign is multi-pronged, against a variety of high-value targets. One target set includes
oil refineries and oil and gas storage facilities. Hits generally produce dramatic images and videos on social media making them easy to confirm. The overall damage to the
industry is hard to assess but growing. Sanctions make it difficult to repair refineries and Russia may be forced to put up prices or ration supplies.
A second class of target are Russian military airbases. The exact ranges of Ukraine’s different strike drones are unknown, but a
recent attack on Olenya airbase in Russia struck from over 1,100 miles / 1,800 kilometers away. This sort of range puts a huge number of Russian bases at risk. These strikes are hard to assess, as the only available damage information comes from satellite imagery which can be frustratingly indistinct. Ukraine claims to have
destroyed a Russian Su-30M at Saky airbase and
damaged a Tu-22M bomber at Olenya ins trikes on 27th July, but these are impossible to confirm.
Note that for both types of target a small drone warhead can inflict disproportionate damage. A single destroyed Russian fighter could pay for the cost of the entire drone campaign several times over. Some of the larger drones can carry much larger warheads though, up to several hundred pounds, holding a larger range of targets at risk.
Electric substations, which in Russia are cooled by flammable oil,
are also targets for Ukrainian drones.
Writing on Twitter/X Mick Ryan, Senior Fellow for Military Studies at the
Lowry Institute notes that one function of Ukraine’s drone campaign is to create dilemmas for Russian military planners. Pulling back air defenses from the frontline could help protect airbases but leave troops exposed to air attack. Focusing on air bases means vital oil storage facilities will burn at an increasing rate. Changing protocols to allow defenders to open fire sooner could increase the already
terrible rate of friendly fire incidents.
Ryan notes that as well as economic and military effects, the drone campaign is a political weapon. Soaring gas prices and burning oil tanks bring home to Russians the true consequences of invading Ukraine.
Accelerated Production
The big question is just how many long-range attack drones Ukraine can produce, and whether July is a blip or a trend.
When I talked to
drone makers Terminal Autonomy last December, they discussed plans for mass production of their AQ-400 Scythe. The drone’s wooden body can be made by the same facilities that cut flat-pack furniture, and it is easy to assemble by unskilled labor. They believed they could make 500 drones per month by mid-2024 but this would depend on receiving government backing. Other drone makers producing the
Bobr, Lyuty and others could have similar capacity, again if they get sufficient funding.
In December, Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister for Strategic Industries of Ukraine, said he
aimed to produce 10,000 strike drones with ranges in the hundreds of kilometers in 2024. That would be over 830 a month.
And last week, during one of his evening addresses,
President Zelensky stated that “We are preparing steps to increase the number and quality of our long-range drones.”
One month of increased drone strikes may not be meaningful. Ukraine has not yet exceeded the total of 600 Shaheds launched by Russia in March and December. But July may mark a turning point in the strategic drone war, and the start of increasing problems for Russia.
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