Photo: Russian Defence Ministry press service / AP

This autumn, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with more than 6,000 missiles and drones, which is four times more than in the same period in 2023. The Wall Street Journal reports this with reference to analytical data.

• 92% of the munitions fired were drones and decoys. Most of them are cheap decoy drones that Russia uses to deplete Ukraine’s air defence system.
• Up to half of the drones may be unarmed, designed solely to distract attention.

Russian production

According to the WSJ, the launch of such a large number of drones was made possible by a plant in Tatarstan. Russia is now capable of producing about 1 ,200 analogues of Iranian Shahed drones every month.

Ukraine actively uses electronic warfare to protect itself:

• In October, 93% of enemy drones were intercepted or destroyed.
• In November, the percentage of intercepted ballistic and hypersonic missiles increased significantly to over 40%.

WSJ analysts note that the effectiveness of Ukrainian air defence is increasing due to improved defence methods and the relatively low quality of Russian drones compared to the original Iranian Shahed.