Russia’s military drone production cannot keep up with Moscow’s demand for unmanned aerial vehicles as the war in Ukraine drags on, according to a new report.
“The Russian military-industrial complex is still trying to match UAV production with need,” a new report published by the Center for Naval Analyses, a U.S.-based think tank, concluded.
Drones have played an important role in the ongoing war for both Moscow and Kyiv. Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s internal affairs ministry, previously told Newsweek that “this war is a war of drones.”
Ukraine has doubled down on efforts to produce a “drone army.” The British government promised earlier this month to furnish Ukraine with “hundreds of new long-range attack drones” with a range of over 200 kilometers, or around 125 miles. Ukraine has repeatedly published footage of the conflict recorded on certain drones to social media.
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Russia has frequently launched drone attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure targets using Iranian-made Shahed 131 and 136 drones, also known as “kamikaze” drones. Russia also uses intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) drones.
Domestically, Russia has produced ISR drones such as Orlan variant UAVs, as well as loitering munitions like Lancet drones.
But Russia’s inability to keep pace with its domestic production of drones is “well known by the Russian leadership,” the CNA noted.
Former Russian President and current deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, Dmitry Medvedev, said in October 2022 that Russia was “yet to launch large-scale production of UAVs of various types,” which he categorized as an “urgent need.”
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“UAVs have proven their effectiveness in modern conflict,” Medvedev said, in quotes carried by Russian state media. “Their use in the zone of the special military operation is an urgent need,” he added, referring to the ongoing war by its Kremlin-approved term.
Yet the Russian defense ministry is struggling to overcome “entrenched shortcomings” with domestic drone production, the CNA report said, adding that these problems predated the start of full-scale war in February 2022.
These pre-existing issues “have been brought to light and made critical by the Russia-Ukraine war,” the CNA said.
Samuel Bendett, a co-author of the CNA report, told Newsweek that there are several fundamental issues for Moscow’s military-industrial complex, not least that Russia relies on imported technology which it cannot substitute for domestic equivalents.
Certain parts of the defense industry are resistant to change, contributing to this problem, he added.
“Many industries prefer to continue manufacturing the UAVs they produced before the invasion, even as the ongoing war is demonstrating the need for a different technology that is cheaper and faster to assemble, and can be just as lethal,” Bendett argued.
Within an uncoordinated industry, smaller manufacturers in Russia that could offer innovation—but cannot mass-produce new drones for Moscow’s military—are being drowned out by large, state-backed companies, Bendett said. These parties “do not always work well—or don’t want to listen to smaller, more nimble companies” offering changes from the status quo, Bendett added.
The British defense ministry suggested on March 1, 2023, that a lull in Shahed 131 and Shahed 136 drone attacks from mid-February indicated that Russia had “run down its current stock” and would look to replenish it.
Ukrainian authorities have continued to report Shahed drone strikes in recent months and weeks, including on Tuesday. Ukraine’s air force said in a statement early on Tuesday that Russia had launched 31 Shahed drones on Ukrainian targets, with air defenses intercepting 29 of the attack UAVs.
Russia has accused Ukraine of using eight drones to attack Moscow on Tuesday, which Kyiv has denied.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian defense ministry for comment via email.