Russia Made Drone Production a Supreme Priority. Now It Swarms the Skies.

When Russia introduced self-destructing drones from Iran into its war against Ukraine three years ago, Moscow made headlines around the world by launching 43 of them into Ukraine in a single strike.

This month, in just one night, Russia sent more than 800 exploding drones and decoys swarming across the border.

The drastic increase is a result of huge production jumps in Russia for one-way attack drones, which are prioritized by President Vladimir V. Putin and are now being assembled domestically at two main facilities The Kremlin has also pressed through big manufacturing increases in the smaller tactical drones that Russia uses on the front line, enlisting Russian regional governments, factories and even high school students in the push.

Russia’s supply surges, combined with new technology and tactics, have created a colossal challenge for Ukraine, which enjoyed an advantage in drone warfare early in the war that Moscow has eroded.

Russia is using the attack drones, together with missiles and decoys, to saturate air defenses and mount mass onslaughts on Ukraine’s weapons production facilities, energy infrastructure and cities. Kyiv has made big advances of its own in conducting drone strikes deep into Russia, and on Sunday struck a major oil refinery near St. Petersburg. But the Russian barrages are bigger and more sophisticated, and the Ukrainian military is scrambling to adapt its tactics to defend against them.

The threat spilled over onto NATO territory last week. At least 19 Russian drones flew into Poland late Tuesday and early Wednesday, its government said, with only a small handful shot down. Then on Saturday, Romania’s Defense Ministry said two of its fighter jets had intercepted a drone in Romanian airspace amid Russian attacks on neighboring Ukraine. The two episodes demonstrated the difficulty the Western alliance would face in defending against the types of onslaughts Moscow is now able to muster. In the future, individual Russian assaults could involve thousands of drones.

“The war has reached another inflection point in how drones are being used, both at the front line and in the strike campaigns being conducted by Russia and Ukraine,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

More than anything, the drones spread terror, bringing the war to cities far from the front line, often in the middle of the night, making it all but impossible to sleep during large-scale attacks. The goal is to demoralize Ukrainians and sap their will to endure the war.

Mr. Kofman said there was a big difference between the smaller drones Russia was using on the front line to move its forces forward and the one-way attack drones that were being used for the purposes of bombardment.

“Despite all the damage that is being done, from what we know of efforts to win a war through bombardment, on its own it is not likely to succeed,” Mr. Kofman said. “This is no blitz, and the blitz wasn’t successful for Germany either.”

Overwhelming Numbers

Russia’s drone attacks began amping up last September, the first month in the war that Moscow sent more than 1,000 drones into Ukraine, according to a data set created by The New York Times using numbers from the Ukrainian Air Force.

This year, the numbers have skyrocketed.

Russia has so far sent more than 34,000 attack drones and decoys into Ukraine in 2025, nearly nine times the number from the same period last year, according to the Times data set. Of the drones Moscow has deployed this year, Ukraine said it had knocked down 88 percent by shooting them or electronically scrambling them. That figure is down from the nearly 93 percent Kyiv reported in 2024.

Behind the overwhelming numbers is a revolution in drone production in Russia.

Mr. Putin’s autocratic government has signaled from the very top that drones are a crucial priority for the nation, which has mobilized public and private resources to create a drone-making empire.

At a recent economic forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok, nearly every Russian region participating included a display about the drones it was producing. Students and foreign workers have been brought in to manufacture drones. Russia has drawn on its warm relations with Iran and China for know-how and parts.

Analysts estimate that Russia is now able to produce about 30,000 of the attack drones modeled on the Iranian design per year. Some believe the country could double that in 2026.

The increases explain why Ukraine, despite developing sophisticated air defenses and drone technology of its own, still suffers under Russian drone attacks.

“The answer is simple and straightforward,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a military analyst at Ukraine’s government-run National Institute for Strategic Studies.

“They started from maybe hundreds a month, then 2,000 to 3,000 a month in the first quarter of this year, now with 5,000 to 6,000 a month,” he said of Russian drone incursions. “For sure, more of them are going to get through our air defenses.”

New Tactics and Technology

The drones have also advanced technologically, with better guidance systems, improved resistance to jamming and novel types of warheads.

Moscow is sending the attack drones in swarms, or waves, and routing them in confusing paths to divert attention from actual targets. It is sending many more decoys, made of painted foam and plywood, which sometimes contain small warheads and are indistinguishable from actual drones in the sky. And it is bypassing the open fields where Ukrainian air-defense teams work, flying over rivers and forests instead. Once the drones enter cities, they are harder to shoot down because of tall buildings and the risks to civilians.

“So they fly higher,” Mr. Bielieskov said. “They fly in waves or in packs; it depends how they are programmed. So basically it’s about the scale. It’s about changes in Russian tactics. It’s about changes in guidance.”

As Russia started producing more attack drones and using more decoys, Ukraine scrambled to devise new ways to knock them down.

Air-defense units have shot drones and decoys out of the sky. Mobile teams of soldiers in pickup trucks shoot down drones, often with heavy-duty machine guns. Ukraine also figured out how to jam drones electronically.

Expensive high-tech systems provided by the West mainly protect major cities and key infrastructure and are primarily geared toward incoming missiles.

Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst with Rochan Consulting in Poland, said he thought it was difficult to draw conclusions based on official Ukrainian numbers. He said the situation with Ukraine’s defenses against drones might be worse than its Air Force portrays. “I think they are shooting down fewer numbers of drones that they report on,” he said.

It has been an ever-changing game of cat and mouse.

As Russia started flying drones higher, Ukraine responded by employing cheap interceptor drones, equipped with radar. But their use is still limited, said Mr. Kofman, the Carnegie Endowment analyst.

“If they can scale that, they can probably address the saturation problem over time,” he said. “It’s a matter of production and scaled deployment.”

On the front line, Mr. Kofman said, Russia has been closing the gap with Ukraine on drones, a worrisome sign for Kyiv, which long relied on its superiority in drone warfare to offset its smaller reserves of personnel and weaponry. There, Russia pioneered the widespread use of drones that avoid jamming by connecting to controllers with miles-long fiber-optic cables. Russia also introduced Rubicon, an elite drone unit, and is aiming to build an entire military branch called the Drone Forces.

Mr. Kofman said Ukraine’s advantage “had diminished in recent months in light of Russia deploying its own elite drone formations and better organization in how they deploy drones.”