Russia outpacing Ukraine's air defences with daily use of new jet-powered drones

Russia outpacing Ukraine's air defences with daily use of new jet-powered drones

Russia launched its new fast, jet-powered drones at Ukraine every day during August, according to BBC Verify analysis of Ukrainian Air Force data, intensifying its use of a weapon that Kyiv’s air defences are finding hard to counter.

It was the first time that Ukrainian Air Force data recorded daily attacks by Moscow’s new upgraded Geran drones. The rising deployment of jet-propelled and other drone types led President Volodymyr Zelensky to denounce what he described as an unfolding "horror" in the skies over Kyiv.

Ukraine’s military recently told the BBC that jet-powered drone attacks increased from 350 in June to 1,600 in July and 2,800 in August. In five of August’s overnight attacks, these drones outnumbered the older, slower versions.

"The reason for turning to jet-powered drones is that they are much faster than the previous generation and it makes it much more difficult for Ukraine to intercept them," said Dr Marina Miron, a military technology expert at King’s College London.

The upgraded weapons can fly at more than 300mph, far quicker than older models and well above the top speed of Kyiv’s interceptors. The drones use turbojet engines, some of which, according to Ukrainian military intelligence, come from China.

Zelensky said the drones were part of a barrage that killed at least 12 people and wounded 20 more on 1 September. Six of the victims were railway workers after a depot in Kyiv was struck.

Earlier this year, Ukraine had shown relative success against Russian drones and was intercepting 94% of long-range drones, according to Zelensky.

But the speed of the newer drones has triggered the latest phase of the arms race between Kyiv and Moscow. On 10 August, Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence, Maj Gen Vadym Skibitskyi, said his forces needed new interceptor missiles "capable of matching [jet-drones'] speed".

Debris from Geran drones’ distinctive jet engines has become increasingly common in Kyiv.

Four Ukrainian companies have reportedly begun testing missiles that can bring down the new Geran models, officials in Kyiv recently told reporters. The country’s new defence minister, Yevhenii Khmara, has instructed them to produce "thousands of units" as quickly as possible.

Russia also had an economic reason to invest in jet-powered drones. Their greater speed and manoeuvrability mean the boundary between them and more costly cruise missiles has become "blurred", said John Hardie of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank focused on national security and foreign policy.

"Long-range one-way attack drones are basically a poor man's cruise missile," he said. "The more you add capability to a drone, the less meaningful the distinction between the drone and a lower-end cruise missile."

However, the analyst group Conflict Armament Research stressed that jet-drones are still not as advanced as cruise missiles. It said they have a shorter range, carry much smaller warheads and are more vulnerable to jamming systems.

Meanwhile, satellite images appear to show Moscow is redesigning key facilities used in the war in Ukraine to accommodate jet-powered drones, with longer rails linked to the munitions visible at a completely new base at Tsymbulova in the Oryol region.

Several launch sites appear to have been constructed at the facility, which is about 109 miles (175 km) from the Ukrainian border.

Since the site became operational, Tsymbulova appears to have turned into a major hub for Russian drone attacks. The Oryol region, where the Tsymbulova base is located, was not listed as a drone launch site in Air Force reports before September 2024, but by August 2026 it was named in almost every attack.

The spread of jet-powered drones comes as BBC Verify found that Russia is now hitting Ukraine with complex attacks involving hundreds of drones and missiles roughly once a week.

The growing scale of the strikes is being driven by Moscow’s move toward combining a "greater variety of munitions" - including jet-powered and decoy drones - with expensive ballistic missiles that are extremely difficult to intercept, Michael Bohnert of the RAND think tank told BBC Verify. Kyiv’s data shows that Moscow is now using more than 15 times as many drones per attack as it was four years ago.

Bohnert added that the tactically complex nature of the assaults, together with a global shortage of air defence systems able to stop ballistic missiles partly caused by the US-Israeli war with Iran, has contributed to falling interception rates by Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Air Force data showed a decline in interceptions of ballistic missiles through the end of July. In August, Kyiv largely stopped publishing the figures that would reveal its interception rate.