Ukrainian drones appear to be getting better at bypassing Russian air defenses to strike critical infrastructure.
After Ukrainian drones hit locations across Moscow on June 18 โ the largest attack since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine โ a debate was sparked about holes in the country’s defense net.ย
A major oil refinery in Moscow, which supplies 40% of the region’s fuel, was set alight and production appeared to have halted for several days after the attack. There were also evacuations at Russia’s largest airport. Eyewitnesses flooded social media with footage of what looked like failed air defense interceptions of the drones.
“That impression forms among non-specialists, who see a missile fly past a drone without hitting it ,”ย Ruslan Leviev, a Russian dissident, military analyst and founder of the investigative group Conflict Intelligence Team, told DW.
Exiled Russian journalist Ivan Filippov tracks pro-Kremlin bloggers and noted their growing alarm that Ukraine had found a gap in Russian defenses.
“They don’t want the war to stop โ they want a more effective war,” Filippov told DW, meaning radical reform of the defense ministry and Russia’s military-industrial complex. “But I think they understand perfectly well that these reforms are impossible. So these texts tend to be pessimistic.”
Anatoliy Khrapchynskyi, a Ukrainian aviation expert and former air force officer, attributed the breaching of Moscow’s air defense on June 18 to a combination of two factors: A systemic degradation of Russia’s defense architecture and the technological evolution of Ukraine’s strike capabilities.
Leviev wasn’t so sure. His team did not record weakening of Russia’s defenses because it actually downed more than 90% of the UAVs over Moscow. But the few that managed to get by Russian air defenses caused substantial damage.
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Leviev believes the core issue is quantity. As the scale of attacks is increasing, this challenge is the same for both Russia and Ukraine: Mass drone attacks demand more hardware than any industry can supply.
Russia’s weaknesses
Russian systems, including the Pantsir-S1, were designed to counter classic, large-scale attackers like cruise missiles, Khrapchynskyi told DW. They were calibrated against highly radar-reflective targets made of metal โ but modern drones are often made from composite materials like plastic or plywood. This means those systemsย are basically “blind” to small drones.
The sheer size of the Russian territory is a challenge on its own. Building an unbroken “air wall” or a single “dome” is impossible, Leviev said.
And Moscow is an even easier target for drones because of its high urban density. The denser the development โ especially high-rises โ the easier it is for drones to hide from radars behind buildings, Leviev explained.
Ukraine is taking advantage of this. Khrapchynskyi explained that Kyiv’s long-rangeย drones have significantly improved in their ability to plot complex flight paths and avoid potential interception zones.
At the same time, Russia has also redeployed some of its air defense systems, sending them to the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
Experts say the best air defense systems are layered, with different interceptors able to act at various altitudes and target different types of attackers moving at a range of speeds, including missiles and drones.
Russia’s redeployment has caused the disintegration of a once layered air defense system and now it’s more of a patchwork, Khrapchynskyi noted.
American media outlet CBS also cited Ukrainian sources who say Russia may be running short of S-300 systems, a series of long-range,ย surface-to-air missileย systems that are meant to be used to combat air attacks. It is thought that sanctions on Russia have hindered replacement components.
Khrapchynskyi links the shortages to Russia repurposing its S-300s for surface-to-surface strikes on Ukraine.
“Russia has fallen into the trap of the very ‘math of war’ it once tried to impose,” Khrapchynskyi concluded. That is, by trying to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses with S-300 strikes Russia drained its own stockpiles of interceptor missiles.
Kremlin does damage control
In the aftermath of the June 18 attack on Moscow, Russian officials seemed more rattled by how well the attack was documented than by the attack itself.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian air defense had performed appropriately and urged people to focus on Russian strikes on Ukraine instead. “The footage is impressive โ showing the results of strikes by our armed forces. These strikes will continue,” Peskov said.
The Kremlin’s approach is to downplay the attack. As Leviev says, militarily the June 18 drone strikes changed little. He believes such attacks function more as “political strikes,” a way to unsettle public opinion, particularly ahead of elections for Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, this September.
Edited by: C. Schaer