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Russian drone attacks on Ukraine are increasing – how bad can it get?

For the third month in a row, the number of Shahed-type kamikaze drones fired by Russia in Ukraine rose to a record level.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Moscow deployed a total of 2,576 drones in November, compared to 2,023 the previous month.

And the Kremlin clearly has no intention of letting up on the relentless nighttime attacks – in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow planned to increase drone production “almost tenfold” this year.

According to Putin, in 2023 the Russian army received around 140,000 drones of various types. This year, Putin said, Moscow wants to produce 1.4 million.

This begs the question: How bad could things get for Ukraine?

A graphic showing how Russian drone strikes against Ukraine increased in 2024 (Nizar al-Rifai/The Kiev independent)

Ukraine’s air defenses, bolstered by Western-supplied systems such as Patriot and NASAMS, have proven extremely effective in defending cities from Russian mass missile attacks.

However, due to the high price of missiles for such systems, which makes their use against relatively cheap drones extremely inefficient, Ukraine has developed and used various methods to combat these systems.

“They have developed an approach where they use mobile firefighting groups and a huge network of sensors of different types to detect and track these drones,” Federico Borsari, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told Kyiv Independent.

“They use anti-aircraft guns and machine guns, even cheaper missiles, and these types of intercept techniques are much more cost effective compared to Patriot and other types of air defense.”

Ukraine has also become more adept at using electronic warfare (EW) techniques to confuse and misdirect Russian drones during attacks.

GPS spoofing involves manipulating or deceiving a drone’s GPS receiver by transmitting fake signals, making the drone believe that it is in the wrong location and is flying somewhere else.

According to Borsari, only about 5% of drones launched by Russia, deploying both mobile fire groups and EW, actually make it through Ukraine’s air defenses.

However, he adds that Russia has adapted to defend against drone attacks just as Ukraine has.

When Russia first began using kamikaze drones to attack Ukraine in September 2022, Moscow used the imported, Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.

Since then, Russia has begun producing its own Shahed drones and developing new variants.

A crater from the explosion of a Russian kamikaze drone remains near a children’s outpatient clinic in Dniprovskyi district on November 29, 2024 in Kiev, Ukraine (Andriy Zhyhaylo/Obozrevatel/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Decoy, thermobaric, and shrapnel drones

According to recent reports, Russia has been able to produce a variety of kamikaze drones, including decoy drones to weaken Ukraine’s air defenses, as well as thermobaric drones and splinter drones to inflict maximum damage.

Most significant in terms of the size of the attacks is the number of decoy drones used by Russia.

Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) reported on November 18 that Russian forces are using cheap decoy drones with foreign components to overload Ukraine’s air defense system.

This is reported to be a variant of the Gerbera drone. They are made from materials such as plywood and foam and are reportedly ten times cheaper than Iran’s Shahed drone.

While some versions carry explosives or reconnaissance equipment, others are equipped with neither and are fired alongside their deadly counterparts to distract Ukraine’s air defenses.

“Sometimes they are decoys, sometimes they are not – all this is intended to create even more problems for the Ukrainian air defense and waste a lot of resources on tracking, detection and combat,” Borsari said.

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According to a November 16 investigation by the Associated Press (AP), Russia has recently begun equipping some drones with thermobaric warheads, usually linked to missiles.

Thermobaric warheads create an intense blast of high pressure and heat that can cause devastating injuries such as collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs and brain damage.

Although controversial, thermobaric munitions are not banned under international law.

After a recent attack on the city of Sumy overnight on November 22, Governor Volodymyr Artyukh said the drones used in the attack were armed with shrapnel ammunition.

In addition to the warhead’s explosive power, they blasted ball bearings out of the impact area. Two people were killed in the attack and twelve others were injured.

“These weapons are used to kill people. Not to destroy buildings, but just to kill more people,” Artiukh said in a video uploaded to the regional government’s official Telegram channel.

Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), the Shahed-136, equipped with jet engines, are transported by a truck during a military parade commemorating the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) in front of the Khomeini Shrine in South of Tehran, Iran, on September 21, 2024 (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Russian drone production

The main limiting factor on the size of drone strikes Russia can launch is the number of drone strikes it can carry out, Sascha Bruchmann, military analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Kyiv Independent.

Russia’s main production facility for Shahed-type drones is believed to be located in the Alabuga special economic zone in the central Republic of Tatarstan.

The original plan was to produce 6,000 drones per year, but a May Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report said it was well ahead of schedule and had produced 4,500 by the end of April.

Ukraine targeted the power plant and successfully hit it with a long-range drone strike in early April. However, Bruchmann said that this had not significantly affected operations given the increase in drone attacks in recent months.

“I think what we’re seeing now means the factory is up and running again,” he said.

According to Borsari, this likely means that “we will potentially see even more drones launched against Ukraine per day in the coming weeks,” although he added that it is not certain whether Russia will be able to procure enough components to keep up with demand for longer to keep term.

Russian President Vladimir Putin observes an exhibition of Orlan-10 UAV drones at the Special Technology Center on September 19, 2024 in Saint Petersburg (Contributor/Getty Images)

Last month, President Volodymyr Zelensky called for tougher sanctions against suppliers of components used in Russian drones.

Russia continues to avoid sanctions through the use of sanctions evasion networks and shell companies. Russia is also being supported in circumventing sanctions by its allies, including China, Iran and North Korea.

“Microchips, microcontrollers, processors and many other parts are essential to enabling this terror,” Zelensky said.

Borsari said that by bypassing current sanctions, Russia will be able to “maintain a steady supply of components, of course not without difficulties.”

“I expect the number of drones used in attacks to remain at this level, if not it will increase in the coming weeks,” he added.

But Bruchmann said it was too early to say whether another rise in numbers was a long-term trend, adding there was a chance Russia could deploy supplies before Donald Trump moved into the White House in January.

“I wouldn’t panic yet,” he said, adding that the rise in numbers could lay the foundation for eventual U.S.-led negotiations between Kiev and Moscow.

“Putin is basically telling (the US): ‘I can escalate too, and it won’t be that easy.’

“So it is still too early to say whether this is a longer-term trend.”

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