As Russian war machines advance in eastern Ukraine, another attack is taking place far beyond the front line. Russia has stepped up nightly drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and civil infrastructure, and its strikes have intensified as it rapidly increases production of those weapons.
While many drones are not particularly high-speed or high-tech, they are cheap enough for the Kremlin to launch more than 700 in one night, to help the Kremlin overpower the Ukrainian air force and destroy civilian morale, experts say.
After obtaining Iranian designs for Shahed Attack Drones, Russia built its own giant factory to stir up thousands of weapons each month. Its evolving tactics force Ukraine to fight back with more expensive ammunition and innovation.
The rapid rise in drone strikes shows how war evolved to rely on these unmanned, self-driving cars.
Ukraine and Russia have been driven to improve drone capabilities to compensate for the deficiencies in air force capabilities, a dynamic that does not apply to all Western countries. However, experts say the US and its European NATO allies are actively working to improve drone and counter-drone operations to maintain advantages in future conflicts.
“NATO will probably use drones on a large scale, not on the same scale as Russia or Ukraine, because we have these large air forces that we invested in.
Taiwan is already considering developing a number of cheap attack drones, Tollest said. Non-state actors and drug cartels around the world are also increasingly dependent on drones. “These will pose a major challenge to unprepared troops around the world,” he added.
This is how Russia’s drone campaign operates and how Ukraine is working to fight back.
Russia is heading towards producing more than 6,000 Shahed drones each month, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Agency told CNN. And it is much cheaper to produce attack drones within Russia compared to the early days of the war, when Moscow was buying them from Tehran.
“In 2022, Russia paid an average of $200,000 for one such drone,” a Ukrainian defense source said. “In 2025, that number reached around $70,000,” said large-scale production at an Arab Gadrone factory in the Tatarstan region of Russia.
However, cost estimates vary widely. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a DC-based think tank, has found that Shahed-136 estimates range from $20,000 to $50,000 per drone. In comparison, a single surface-to-air missile interceptor can cost over $3 million.
This relatively low cost allows the Kremlin to bolster nightly drone attacks and carry out more frequent, large-scale attacks. In the early days of the war, major missile and drone salvos happened once a month. By mid-2025, they had on average occurring every eight days, according to a CSIS analysis.
For many civilians, the constant threat of drone attacks is horrifying.
Kyiv resident Bohdana Zhupanyna was seriously pregnant in July when her family’s apartment disappeared due to a Russian drone strike.
“Because such stress during nine months of pregnancy is extremely dangerous,” Zhupanyna, who then safely rescued the baby, told CNN shortly after the strike. “I lost a lot in this damn war. My father was killed by the hands of the Russians, my apartment was destroyed by the hands of the Russians, and my mother was almost killed by the hands of the Russians.”
And while Russia uses long-range drones to attack Ukrainian cities hundreds of miles from the frontline, it explains that civilians living in cities near Russia-controlled areas are plagued by daily FPV drone attacks. Residents in the Kherson area previously told CNN that FPV drone attacks had been reported on pedestrians, cars, buses and even ambulances, and the target appears to be out of reach.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians despite substantial evidence of the opposition.
Yasir Atalan, a data fellow at CSIS, said the percentage of drones that hit targets has nearly doubled, with hit rates of nearly 20% since April being nearly 20% over 2024, with targets being under 10% in 2024. And in the analysis, the CSIS analyst wrote: “It doesn’t matter whether an individual Shahed hits the target. What’s important is the combined effects of terrorist weapons on civilians and the stress that it puts on air defense.”
Russia’s tactic is to “maintain constant pressure,” Atalan told CNN. “Their strategy is now increasingly focusing on this type of attrition.”
Ukraine also fought back with frontline FPV drones and used long-range drones to attack infrastructure and weapons facilities within Russia.
“For all technological developments, both parties are already looking for solutions. And because the innovation cycle is so fast, (a) the 2-3-week issue already shows (a) the adoption of technology breakthroughs.”
“So some of the approaches that may be effective right now may not be as effective in the coming months,” Stefanenko said.
Currently, both Ukraine and Russia are working on developing AI-powered drones that can not only create interceptor drones that can be deployed as a cheaper way to counter air attacks than launching missiles, according to ISW, but can also make their own decisions on the battlefield.
“There are many reports of Ukrainians testing some of these drones, but we haven’t seen them being deployed on a large scale,” Stepanenko said. “The development of interceptor drones will help unlock Ukrainian capabilities and help the Ukrainian forces maintain some of their (their) air defense missiles for missile strikes.”
