Exclusive: Ukraine could face 500+ Russian drones a night as Kremlin builds new launch sites

Yahoo

2 days ago

Russia will soon be able to deploy more than 500 long-range drones a night to attack Ukraine as it ramps up production and builds new launch sites for them, a source in Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) has told the Kyiv Independent.
According to the source, Russia's production rate for one type of drone — Shahed-type Gerans — is up to 70 units per day, from a reported 21 a day last year, and Moscow will soon have 12-15 new launch sites in operation.
Three of these were identified by Ukrainian media in March, the remaining have not been previously reported.
Only three are still under construction, with the others already in the process of becoming operational, the source said.
Until recently, Russian launches have depended on just five launch sites: Kursk, the port towns of Yeysk and Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Krasnodar Krai, and two sites in occupied Crimea, Cape Fiolent and Cape Chauda.
Currently, Russia's drone swarms have topped out at 472 total units at once, a record set on the night of June 1. After the new launch sites are completed, and with drone production numbers increasing, they will be able to send over 500 in a single attack, the source said.
Russian production is ramping up to accommodate this, according to Kyiv. Last month President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was aiming to produce 500 long-range drones of various types a day.
The source in HUR said at present, Russia makes upwards of 70 Geran drones per day, over 2,100 a month..
CNN found that for the first nine months of 2024, Russia was producing an average of roughly 21 per day, or just 640 per month.
But Gerans only make up a part of the total number of drones that Russia regularly launches at Ukraine.
Almost all of Russia's deep-strike drones are divided into three similar varieties — Iranian-made imported Shaheds, which have been in use since late 2022, Russian-made Gerans, which are direct copies of Shaheds, and more recently Garpiya-A1s, which look similar but use Chinese parts.
The source did not give any information on the numbers of Shaheds Russia is importing from Iran or the number of Garpiya-A1s that it is producing.
There are also inexpensive "dummy drones," or Gerbers, which resemble Shaheds but do not carry explosives.
Those drones distract Ukrainian radar and anti-aircraft fire and typically make up half of the drones sent into Ukraine in a given attack, a Ukrainian mobile defense group that shoots them down told the Kyiv Independent.
Data from the Ukrainian Air Force and compiled by KI Insights show a massive uptick in Russian drone launches into Ukraine since the latter half of 2024.
Their effectiveness — those neither shot down nor lost en route to the targets — has increased over the past six months due to modifications to the drones themselves, as well as how they are deployed.
An increasing number of new Russian-made deep-strike drones are being equipped with jet engines, allowing them to carry heavier payloads at higher speeds and altitudes.
Production of domestic first-person view, or FPV, drones is also up in the Russian military, which the HUR source says is trying to raise annual production from the current figure of 1.5 million to 1.8-2 million by next year.
Ukraine plans to produce 4.5 million FPV drones in 2025 after making 1.5 million in 2024.
Mykolaj Suchy from KI Insights contributed data analysis to this piece.
Read also: Exclusive: Russia's ballistic missile production up at least 66% over past year, according to Ukrainian intel figures
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