Russia's new jet drones overwhelm Ukraine's defenses with daily launches
Author, Benedikt Garman
And
Author, Matt Murphy
Role, BBC Fact-Finder
Published 2 minutes ago
Reading time: 4 minutes
Russia launched its new, fast jet drones into Ukraine every day throughout the month of August, according to a BBC fact-checking analysis of Ukrainian Air Force data, in an escalation of the use of a weapon that Kiev's air defenses have difficulty confronting.
This is the first time that Ukrainian Air Force data has recorded daily attacks using the new advanced Russian “Giran” drones. The increasing use of jet drones and other models prompted President Volodymyr Zelensky to denounce what he described as the worsening "horror" in the skies of Kiev.
The Ukrainian army recently reported to the BBC that the number of drone attacks rose from 350 in June to 1,600 in July, then to 2,800 in August. In five of the night attacks during August, these drones outnumbered older, slower models.
Dr. Marina Miron, an expert in military technology at King's College London, said: "The reason for resorting to jet-propelled drones is that they are much faster than the previous generation, which makes intercepting them much more difficult for Ukraine."
The advanced munitions can fly at speeds exceeding 300 miles per hour, which is much faster than older models, and far exceeds the maximum speed of the interceptor drones used by Kiev. These drones operate with turbojet engines, some of which are imported from China, according to Ukrainian military intelligence.
According to Zelensky, these drones were used in a wave of attacks that killed at least 12 people and injured 20 others on September 1. Six of the victims were railway workers, after a warehouse in Kiev was targeted.
The Moldovan government said on Wednesday that a plane carrying Zelensky was delayed at Chisinau airport on Tuesday after a Russian drone, reportedly powered by jet propulsion, entered Moldovan airspace.
Earlier this year, Ukraine demonstrated relative success in countering Russian drones, intercepting 94 percent of long-range drones, according to Zelensky. However, the speed of the latest drones has sparked a new round of arms race between Kyiv and Moscow. On August 10, the deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Major General Vadim Skibitsky, said that his forces needed new interceptor missiles “capable of keeping up with the speed of jet drones.”
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Four Ukrainian companies have reportedly begun testing missiles capable of shooting down new Geran models, officials in Kiev told reporters recently. The new Ukrainian Defense Minister, Yevgeny Khmara, tasked these companies with producing “thousands of units” as quickly as possible.
Russia also had an economic incentive to invest in jet-propelled drones. John Hardy of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security and foreign policy think tank, said the models' increased speed and maneuverability had made the lines between them and more expensive cruise missiles "blurry."
He added: “Long-range drones designed to carry out one-directional attacks are essentially cruise missiles for the poor. The more capabilities you add to a drone, the less important the distinction between it and cruise missiles with basic specifications becomes.”
But the analytical organization "Conflict Armament Research" stressed that jet drones have not yet reached the level of sophistication of cruise missiles. She said that the attack range of these munitions is shorter, that they carry much smaller warheads, and that they are more vulnerable to jamming systems.
Meanwhile, satellite images appear to show that Moscow is reconfiguring key facilities dedicated to supporting its war in Ukraine to accommodate the jet drones, as longer launch paths linked to these drones appear at an entirely new base in Tsymbulova, Oryol region.
It appears that several launch sites were established inside the base, which is about 175 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
Since the base entered service, it appears that Tsymbulova has become a major center for Russian drone attacks. The Oryol region, where the base is located, was not mentioned in Ukrainian Air Force reports as a drone launch site before September 2024, but by August 2026, its name appeared in reports of almost every attack.
The increasing spread of drones coincides with the conclusion of the BBC Fact-Finding Service that Russia is launching complex attacks on Ukraine involving hundreds of drones and missiles, at a rate of approximately once a week.
Michael Bohnert, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, told the BBC Fact-Finding Service that the expansion of the strikes was due to Moscow's shift towards combining a "more diverse assortment of munitions", including jet drones, camouflage drones, and expensive ballistic missiles that are extremely difficult to intercept. Kiev data shows that the number of drones used by Moscow in one attack is more than 15 times what it was four years ago.
