05/25/2026

If a year ago the Ukrainian information space was discussing the rumor of “a thousand Shaheds every night”, now Russia is discussing a similar, but much more realistic threat. The trigger was the drone attack on Moscow on May 17, and today Russian “experts” are concerned about the question of when Ukraine will be able to launch a thousand or more drones.

More details about this can be found in the material of the joint project OBOZ.UA and the group “Information Resistance”.

It is an undeniable fact that since 2022, Ukraine has improved the characteristics of its drones for strikes on Russia and diversified their modifications. And it has not only reached parity in terms of quantitative use, but also started launching more of these means into the Russian Federation than ROVs into the Ukrainian rear. Moreover, this fact is confirmed even by Russian Z-military and “experts” who are sounding the alarm.

But it is worth considering the complex factor of the current successes of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in conducting attacks, and not only quantitative, technological-qualitative and tactical. And this complex includes the trend of constant degradation of Russian air defense, which Russian “experts” can no longer hide or ignore.

Factors of degradation of the Russian air defense

The massive, combined raid by Ukrainian drones on Moscow on May 17 showed that Russian air defense is experiencing serious problems with intercepting multiple small, low-flying, subsonic targets, for which there are several equivalent explanations.

The first is the lack of air defense. Despite the fact that four rings of echeloned air defense were formed around Moscow, and the density of countermeasures was the highest in Russia, they were not enough to intercept all targets. As it turned out, there were enough gaps and vulnerabilities in the defense to break through the created rings.

The second is the lack of ammunition. In the fifth year of a full-scale war, the Russian air defense is beginning to experience an acute shortage of ammunition for air defense systems.

The production of anti-aircraft guided missiles at Russian enterprises lags far behind Ukraine’s ability to produce strike drones. As a result, even Russian Z-military units are forced to admit that sometimes some air defense systems stand “silently” because they are empty.

The third is technological backwardness. In particular, we are talking about the quality of some air defense systems, which have problems with fire control systems, guidance, radars, fixation, tracking, and destruction of targets.

First of all, this is the defective Pantsir-S1 air defense missile system, which copes extremely poorly with the tasks assigned to it due to multiple technological problems that cannot be solved due to sanctions. They are trying to partially “fix” them by placing this most common and basic means of combating drones in a small radius – on towers and roofs of buildings, but the improvement in efficiency from such measures is insignificant.

https://t.me/uaobozrevatel/223511

Fourth – reduction of air defense assets. The forces of Ukrainian unmanned systems have organized a real hunt for Russian air defense systems and are pursuing them both in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and in the rear areas of the Russian Federation.

Currently, the Russian occupation forces are losing dozens of air defense units every month – while they can produce units. Compensation for losses is critically lagging behind the level of losses themselves, and every month Russia’s air defense assets are becoming fewer and fewer.

These are the four main reasons why Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia are becoming increasingly effective. But what about the Russians’ fears that soon there will be a thousand or more UAVs flying into Russian territory every day?

The potential of Ukraine’s SBS

Russian observers and propagandists regularly complain that Ukraine is systematically increasing its airstrikes on Russia, repeatedly setting both quantitative records and increasing the success rate of strikes on several targets simultaneously.

At the same time, Ukrainian officials authorized to make such statements have never provided detailed statistics on how many strike drones are used for raids on Russia. Therefore, to understand the scale, only approximate data based on manipulative reports from the Russian Ministry of Defense can be used.

Let me explain what I mean.

For example, on March 9, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that Ukraine had carried out a record-breaking raid at the time, resulting in the interception of 754 Ukrainian drones.

Of course, these figures are not worth believing, because the Russian command constantly lies – inflating the data and exaggerating its achievements. But any exaggeration is based on the original, real data. The only question is what percentage of this exaggeration?

For example, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Ukraine lost over 28,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers in the war, while in total we have never had such a number of MBTs and armored personnel carriers, even taking into account the supplies of equipment by partners. In total, taking into account verified information on the losses of the SOU, which is published by monitoring sites, the overestimation of real losses may be 3-4 times!

Another example. In the spring of 2025, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported intercepting 524 Ukrainian drones. That is, from March 2025 to March 2026, the increase in the reporting of the Ministry of Defense of the aggressor country was 50%. Thus, interpolating this information extremely carefully, we can say that in March more than 250 drones flew over Russia, and a year ago more than 170. The increase in daily raids by 50% amounted to 80 drones.

But, again, this is a variable assumption.

In general, if we trace the trend of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s reporting on interceptions of Ukrainian drones, we can assess their statistics as follows:

– On September 1, 2024, the DOV reported the interception of 158 Ukrainian drones;

– On March 11, 2025, the Russian Ministry of Defense already reported 337 drones;

– On May 7, 2025, there was a sharp jump to 524 drones, and on May 13, 572 ;

– On March 9, 2026, the report included 724 intercepted drones;

– On May 17, 2026, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced 1,054 intercepted Ukrainian drones.

Even based on these data, it is obvious that over the past year and a half, the trend of growth in “intercepted” drones (and only “intercepted” drones are always included in the reports of the Russian Ministry of Defense) has increased by 6.6 times! And even if we assume that on May 17, more than 350 means of destruction were used in Moscow, then by the end of the year this figure may well reach a systemic 1,000.

https://t.me/uaobozrevatel/223651

But the scariest thing for Russian reality is to assume that the Russian Defense Ministry’s reporting is actually true or as close to the truth as possible. Then this means that systematic raids on Russia by Ukrainian drones in the amount of a thousand or more will take place this summer.

Be that as it may, we can already say with some certainty: Ukraine has not only reached a parity level of confrontation with Russia in the use of strike drones, but is also ahead of it. And the gap in quantitative terms continues to rapidly increase.

At the same time, if Ukraine for more than four years has focused on strengthening air defense and finding cheap and mass-produced means of countering kamikaze drones, then in Russia it is the opposite. Air defense was the most sensitive category, with losses that were difficult to compensate for, which has now led not only to a clear shortage of these means in the country, but also to a fatal depletion of ammunition to the currently available ones.

Taking into account all of the above, we can state: the fears of Russian “experts” are not unfounded. And it is quite likely that those who enjoyed the blackouts in Ukraine will soon be traveling by subway (due to the lack of gasoline at gas stations) and looking for a place in Moscow to recharge their phone or power bank.

Also worth noting:

– To terrorize Ukrainians, Russia uses not only cluster ballistics, but also “kamikazes” with dangerous ammunition : what is important to know

– Already to a depth of 120 km: Ukraine’s strikes on the logistics of the Russian occupiers threaten to destroy their plans . And it’s not just about Donbas

– The trigger was the congress in the DPRK: is there a threat of direct North Korean participation in the war in Ukraine and what is “wrong” with Kim Jong-un’s speech

https://war.obozrevatel.com/ukr/tisyacha-ukrainskih-droniv-na-moskvu-v-rosii-vserjoz-zanepokoilisya-strashnoyu-perspektivoyu-i-zabili-na-spoloh-cherez-problemi-z-ppo.htm