Russia’s Drones Are Getting Harder To Hit

Russia’s recent bombardments of Ukrainian cities has raised a troubling new trend for Ukraine: more of Moscow’s kamikaze drones seem to be penetrating or avoiding Ukrainian air defenses.

Russia has launched a series massed missile and drone strikes against Ukraine over the past week, beginning on the night of December 29 and continuing through to early on January 2. Ukraine has been hitting back, on Friday night attacking the border city of Belgorod.

The Russian blitz is intended to collapse Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, further hamper its already beleaguered national economy, and erode the will of Ukrainians to continue their resistance against the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion.

Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee, told Newsweek on Tuesday he had been “awoken by rather loud explosions” in downtown Kyiv.

“People seem to be sad and tired of the constant terror,” Merezhko said. “But such aerial attacks make us even more angry and more determined to defeat Russia…In a war of attrition, the crucial issue is who will outlast whom. We are ready to fight for years, if need be, because the alternative for us is death.”

Many of the munitions fired at Ukraine are being shot down by the country’s varied arsenal of anti-air defenses, repeatedly augmented over the past two years with advanced Western systems. But Moscow is fine-tuning its attacks, too.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted in its Sunday evening update “a notable recent increase” in the percentage of Iranian-made Shahed drones “penetrating or avoiding Ukrainian air defenses.”

The Russian attack on December 30-31 saw missiles and drones hit Ukrainian civilian, military and infrastructure facilities in Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Of the 49 Shahed drones involved, Ukraine’s air force claimed to have downed 21.

This, the ISW noted, was “a notably lower rate of interceptions for Ukrainian air defenses than ISW has previously observed.”

The same was true on December 29 when Ukraine shot down 27 of 36 Shaheds launched into the country, and on December 30 when Ukraine destroyed five out of 10 drones. On New Year’s Eve, however, the air force said it shot down 87 of the 90 drones launched.

Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat suggested on Sunday that a change in Russian drone strategy might explain the lower-than-expected interception rate.

Twenty-one downed drones, he said, “is also a good result since those drones that came from three directions and managed to reach central [Ukraine] were destroyed.”

Pro-war Russian milbloggers, though, have suggested that Russia is taking steps to make its drones more difficult to intercept.

On December 29, for example, the DnevnikDesantnika Telegram account claimed that new versions of the Shaheds—known in Russia as Geraniums—are painted black and some even fitted with jet engines.

“Plus they are made of a material that partially absorbs radio signals and is more difficult for radar to detect,” the channel said.

Ihnat in November predicted increasing difficulty for Ukrainian drone hunter teams given Shahed modifications.

“Now we can see that they used carbon, the material absorbing the radar signal, and also they painted them black,” he said, as quoted by state news agency Ukrinform. “This will complicate the work of our air defenses, namely the visual by mobile fire groups.”

The Two Majors milblogger channel said the modifications had “changed the rules of the game,” making it more difficult for Ukraine to intercept the drones.

Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian air force by email to request comment.

As of December 31, Inhat said Russia had launched around 3,700 kamikaze UAVs into Ukraine since February 2022, with Ukrainian defense forces shooting down some 2,900.

“It is unclear if adaptations to the Shahed drones are decreasing the Ukrainians’ ability to intercept the drones or if the apparent trend in the decreased Ukrainian interception rate will continue,” the ISW noted in its Sunday update.