Russia is ramping up production of drones, enabling massive daily attacks on Ukrainian cities as its forces slowly advance on the battlefield and Moscow pressures Kyiv to accept its peace terms.

The Kremlin unleashed deadly destruction on the capital Kyiv and the Black Sea city of Odesa overnight, firing 315 drones and seven missiles, according to Ukraine. That followed a record 479 drones the night before, which topped the record set on June 1.

Moscow has been relentlessly ramping up drone attacks since the start of the year, when the scale of the attacks in February hit a daily record of 267 UAVs. After initially losing ground to Ukraine in drone development following a full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has steadily increased mass production of the Iranian-designed Shahed UAV and other types of drones, giving the Kremlin a ready-made weapon to increase pressure on Kyiv to accept its war demands.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in April ordered defense manufacturers to speed up production of drones, aiming to produce 1.5 million by 2024. "These weapons are still limited," he said at the time. In January, he called for Russia to "emerge as one of the global technological leaders" in drone production by 2030, citing what he said was the "utmost importance" of this industry for the country. Read more: Ukraine's Drone Arsenal Takes Russia by Surprise, Transforming Modern Warfare

Moscow's goal is to use a "punitive strategy" with its cheap Shahed drones to force Kyiv to submit, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a recent report. Although Ukraine has managed to stop or shoot down most of them, the weapons "overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses and erode civilian morale through constant nighttime attacks," it said.

Ukraine estimates that Russia is on track to produce between 300 and 350 long-range drones per day and wants to increase production to 500 a day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on May 27. Russian drone manufacturers have managed to increase production of long-range drones to more than 30,000 this year from 15,000 in 2024, while also producing as many as 2 million small tactical drones used to counter tanks and artillery, Politico reported on June 5, citing Oleh Aleksandrov, a spokesman for Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service.

Ukraine's defense intelligence directorate estimates that half of the long-range drones it produces each month are decoys, according to Forbes Ukraine. Kyiv has also accused Russia of using electronic equipment largely sourced from China in violation of sanctions. Beijing has previously said it is not supplying weapons to either side in the war. "Drones have turned out to be a cheap alternative to precision weapons," said Denis Fedutinov, a Moscow-based UAV expert. "This realization did not come immediately. However, once it became clear that drones were delivering tangible results, it gave impetus to accelerate the integration of unmanned systems of various classes into military operations."

Growth across all categories of Russian drone production has been rapid, compared with pre-2022 figures, Fedutinov said. "In some areas, such as loitering munitions and FPV drones, we are talking about a several-fold increase," he said, referring to first-person view drones controlled by an operator via a video feed.

In talks in Istanbul last week, Russia laid out terms for a ceasefire that amounted to a capitulation, including Kyiv ceding control of territory it still controls in four occupied regions and agreeing to neutrality and restrictions on its military capabilities and foreign arms supplies. (alg)

Source: Bloomberg