According to an official Ukrainian military press release, Ukraine’s steadily growing fleet of F-16 fighters, which were first deployed in late July/early August 2024, has undertaken more than 1300 successful aerial interceptions of Russian strike munitions. The F-16 can only target Russian cruise missiles and fixed-wing propeller-driven strike drones and decoy drones, which notably fly over Ukrainian airspace at a low altitude, in a context in which Russian crewed combat aircraft are understood to almost always operate well within the airspace on the Russian side of the frontline/international border. As a result, Ukrainian fighter aircraft, including the F-16, primarily undertake rear area air defence sorties in which the threat posed by long-range Russian R-37 air-to-air missiles and the 40N6 and 48N6 surface-to-air missiles is more limited, especially when Ukrainian fighter aircraft are flying at medium and low altitudes to intercept low-flying Russian strike drones, decoy drones, and cruise missiles.

According to the press release, Ukraine’s F-16 and Mirage 2000 fighters—the latter is deployed in much smaller numbers than the F-16—successfully intercepted at least 10 of the 47 cruise missiles that Russia is said to have launched from the night of 18 November 2025 through the morning of 19 November 2025. According to the Ukrainian military, Russia launched a non-disaggregated total of 476 Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones, as well as unarmed/minimally armed Gerbera propeller-driven fixed-wing decoy drones in that time frame alongside 47 subsonic land-attack cruise missiles. According to the Ukrainian military, a non-disaggregated total of 442—92.8%—of the aforementioned strike and decoy drones were either successfully intercepted by Ukrainian air defences or neutralized by electronic warfare capabilities, while 41 of the 47—87.2%—land-attack cruise missiles were successfully intercepted.

Given the above figures, Ukraine’s F-16 and Mirage 2000 fighters would appear to have intercepted just 2.07% of the total number of strike drones, decoy drones, and cruise missiles Ukraine claims to have intercepted or neutralized from the night of 18 November 2025 through the morning of 19 November 2025, but 24.3% of the cruise missiles that Ukraine claims to have intercepted. This is not surprising given how Russian cruise missiles are likely to avoid needlessly transiting areas with the known concentrations of Ukrainian radar-guided surface-to-air missile systems. Without a very dense and robust forward “line” of ground-based air defence systems to intercept all cruise missiles, which is essentially unfeasible in the military-geographical context of the Russia-Ukraine War, low-flying subsonic Russian cruise missiles are likely to penetrate Ukraine’s quite porous air defences over distances of several hundred kilometers before reaching their intended targets, which are likely to be protected by short- and medium-range air defence systems, inclusive of anti-aircraft artillery and shoulder-launched short-range surface-to-air missiles. Fighter aircraft such as the F-16 and Mirage 2000 are likely to be playing a critically important role in extending rear area air defence capabilities over a large surface area, such as Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper River, by offering a means of intercepting cruise missiles that leak through Ukraine’s porous air defences.

While pre-transfer discussions of the implications of the transfer of F-16 fighters to Ukraine typically discussed how the combination of F-16 fighters and later model AIM-120 long-range air-to-air missiles would allow Ukraine to ambush Russian fighter aircraft launching UMPK and UMPB guided glide bombs over standoff distances of 40 or more kilometers from the frontlines/international border, rear area air defence was always a role for which the relatively outdated F-16 fighters, as well as the Mirage 2000 fighters, that Ukraine has received are far more suited. Rear area air defence against cruise missiles and propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones and decoy drones, which do not evade fighter aircraft, rarely feature any countermeasures, and cannot fight back against the likes of the F-16 or even a Second World War vintage fighter aircraft, is a very productive undertaking for older crewed combat aircraft designs in a context in which the Russian fighter, strike, and attack aircraft, let alone bomber aircraft, are understood to have almost never operated beyond the frontlines since the opening weeks of the Russia-Ukraine War. All things considered, Ukraine would get a lot of mileage by operating even older radar-equipped MiG-21 and F-5 fighter aircraft, but the much newer F-16 fighters that Ukraine has received, which are decades old but nevertheless underwent a fairly comprehensive mid-life upgrade for their former operators, are a much more capable design. It bears emphasis that much the same dynamic concerning rear area air defence in the Russia-Ukraine War can be seen in the area of surface-to-air missile technology, where even decades-old systems such as the American HAWK remain very well-suited to intercepting Russian cruise missiles, strike drones, and decoy drones even though these are not very competitive if used against Russian fighter aircraft from launch positions close to the frontlines/international border.

One of the less discussed capability gains accrued to Ukraine as a result of the transfer of F-16 fighters concerns its ground attack capabilities. According to the Ukrainian military, Ukraine’s F-16 fighters have struck more than 300 ground targets over an unspecified timeframe. Given prior Ukrainian disclosures, the vast majority of sorties undertaken, presumably including F-16 sorties, are air-to-air sorties, and the figure of over 300 ground targets attacked is likely to be reflective of the total number of air-to-ground sorties undertaken since late July/early August 2024. Ukraine’s F-16 fighters are capable of launching up to eight GBU-39 bombs per sortie, a quite small and light but nevertheless potent American guided glide bomb design that can be quite safely launched against battlefield targets, given its considerable standoff range of at least several dozen kilometers. There is no magic in the world of fighter aircraft operations, and Ukrainian F-16s and their pilots and maintainers can only fly for so many hours per day, week, and month. With air-to-air sorties being prioritized, above all to undertake patrols so as to intercept Russian subsonic land-attack cruise missiles that can quickly fly through the coverage of the bulk of Ukraine’s shorter-range and often rudimentary air defences, there are necessarily fewer opportunities for Ukraine’s F-16s to carry and launch air-to-ground munitions. The F-16 fighters that Ukraine has received are, in most respects, better suited to undertaking air-to-air sorties than Ukraine’s residual fleet of Soviet-built MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters, which are seemingly now being heavily used in air-to-ground sorties as more F-16 fighters become available to undertake air-to-air sorties.

Some related posts:

• A non-disaggregated total of 476 propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones—namely the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya—and unarmed/minimally armed decoy drones, namely the Gerbera. While the Ukrainian military’s daily press releases have disaggregated the likes of Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones from Gerbera decoy drones with increasing regularity in recent months, the latest press release notably only offers non-disaggregated figures. Based on prior press releases and publicly disclosed estimates of Russian strike drone and decoy drone production from Ukrainian military intelligence, some 30%-40% of the non-disaggregated total of 476 fixed-wing propeller-driven drones is likely to have been composed of unarmed, or at most minimally armed—with a 1-2 kilogram warhead—decoy drones such as the Gerbera.

• 40 Kh-101 air-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missiles. These are carried and launched by Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers of the Russian air force. Kh-101 launches tend to be sporadic as a result of Russia’s limited production capacity and consequent limited inventory of Kh-101 cruise missiles available for immediate use.

• 7 3M-14 Kalibr sea-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missiles, which are reported to have been launched from the Black Sea. The remaining surface ships and submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet undertake very brief and exceptionally sporadic sorties into the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov to launch a single-digit quantity of 3M-14 land-attack cruise missiles before returning to port to rearm—if 3M-14 reloads are available. As with the air-launched Kh-101, 3M-14 land-attack cruise missile launches tend to be sporadic as a result of Russia’s limited production capacity and consequent limited inventory of 3M-14 cruise missiles that are available for immediate use.

• 1 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missile.

Making Sense Of The Latest Ukrainian Interception Claims

According to the Ukrainian military, 483 of the aforementioned 524 Russian strike munitions—some 92.1%—were either successfully intercepted through one form of air defence capability or another or neutralized through Ukrainian electronic warfare capabilities. While these figures are quite impressive when taken at face value, such aggregated figures are increasingly misleading and should not be readily extrapolated across time and space in the Russia-Ukraine War, let alone to other current and future conflicts.

On Variance In The Susceptibility Of Russian Strike Munitions To Ukrainian Electronic Warfare Capabilities

Neutralization through electronic warfare primarily refers to the jamming and/or spoofing of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) antennas/receivers installed on the likes of the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strikes drones and unarmed/minimally armed Gerbera decoy drones. It bears emphasis that Ukraine’s electronic warfare capabilities are decidedly heterogeneous and that there is considerable variance in terms of the electronic warfare capabilities deployed across Ukraine. There is, moreover, considerable variance in the resilience of Russian GNSS antenna arrays to Ukrainian electronic warfare capabilities.

Several different types of GNSS antenna arrays are installed on Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones. Unarmed/minimally armed Gerbera decoy drones, which typically constitute some 30%-40% of the total number of propeller-driven fixed-wing drones launched by Russia on a given day since the late summer of 2024, are built at a very low price point and feature much less resilient four-element GNSS antenna arrays than the twelve-element and sixteen-element GNSS antenna arrays that increasingly constitute the standard for use on Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones, which previously employed four-element and eight-element GNSS antenna arrays prior to Ukraine’s increasingly widespread deployment of more effective electronic warfare capabilities. GNSS antenna arrays with a greater number of antenna elements are more expensive—and considerably larger/heavier—and would significantly increase the unit cost of Gerbera decoy drones, even if there was no barrier to installation in terms of payload weight and volume on the small Gerbera airframe. All else being equal, the greater the number of elements on a Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna (CRPA) GNSS antenna array, the greater the resilience of the antenna array to the effects of electronic warfare, which is intended to deny the aircraft or munition on which the GNSS antenna array is installed access to reliable and accurate positioning data derived from GNSS satellites.

Given the above, it is possible, even likely, that a greater percentage of the unarmed/minimally armed Gerbera decoy drones are either successfully intercepted or neutralized by electronic warfare than Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones. While not ideal for Russia, such a dynamic will nevertheless be indicative of how the much less expensive unarmed/minimally armed Gerbera decoy drones, which have a take-off weight that is around 10% of the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya, are performing well in their primary role of a low-cost decoy intended to occupy/tax and exhaust/deplete Ukrainian air defences. The greater susceptibility of the GNSS antenna arrays installed on Gerbera decoy drones is, in other words, a feature, not a bug, of this very inexpensive decoy drone design that Ukrainian military intelligence claims Russia is producing at an annualized rate of around 40,000 units—which will allow Russia to sustain an average daily launch rate of 109 Gerbera decoy drones provided that it does not stockpile such decoy drones. It is important to note that while the Ukrainian military has, in recent months, often offered data through which observers can disaggregate the number of strike drones launched from the number of decoy drones launched by Russia on a given day, this practice does not extend to the figures offered for the total non-disaggregated number of Russian propeller-driven drones that Ukraine claims to have successfully intercepted or otherwise neutralized through electronic warfare on a given day.

Focusing On Ukrainian Claims About Cruise Missile And Ballistic Missile Interceptions

According to the Ukrainian military’s latest press release, Ukrainian air defences successfully intercepted 34 of the 40 Kh-101 air-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missiles that Russia is said to have launched, as well as all seven of the seven 3M-14 sea-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missiles that Russia is said to have launched. As a general matter, the aforementioned Russian land-attack cruise missiles are far less susceptible to the effects of GNSS jamming and spoofing than the likes of the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya as well as the Gerbera, and must, as such, be intercepted by Ukrainian air defences unless the missiles malfunction in flight. The single 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missile that Russia is said to have launched does not appear to have been intercepted and may not have even been subject to an interception attempt, given the limited defensive footprint offered by the steadily expanding number of terminal phase endo-atmospheric ballistic missile defence-capable air defence systems operated by the Ukrainian military across Ukrainian territory.

Supposing that the above figures are accurate, Ukraine would have intercepted 85% of the 40 Kh-101 air-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missiles that Russia is said to have launched and 100% of the 3M-14 sea-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missiles that Russia is said to have launched. That is, Ukraine claims to have intercepted 87.23% of the subsonic cruise missiles (of all types) that Russia is said to have launched. Even if these figures are accurate, they are nevertheless misleading in several very important respects: the Ukrainian military’s regular press releases only offer figures for how many Russian strike munitions are intercepted, not where/when these are intercepted or how these are intercepted. The interrelated questions of where/when and how matter because Ukraine may be heavily exerting itself—perhaps unsustainably overexerting itself—to attain these interception figures, and current—now past—performance may not necessarily be indicative of future performance.

The Ukrainian military’s regular press releases, which are frequently and widely cited without careful analytical consideration of what these limited spot data points do and do not actually indicate about air defence dynamics in the Russia-Ukraine War, let alone other contemporary and future conflicts, have never offered observers any indication of how much effort and expense Ukraine puts in to achieve the claimed performance of its air defence capabilities. Observers operating with access to publicly available information have little in the way of recourse, given how the requisite data is non-public and likely to be highly classified, but there is another—albeit limited and imperfect—approach to analytical inference. Official and non-official reports of impacts, specifically cruise and/or ballistic missile impacts, which are not only not accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a propeller-driven drone powered by a small two-stroke piston engine but also result in much larger explosions given the use of much larger and heavier warheads on the Kh-101, 9M723, and 3M-14—offer observers a window into the extent to which Russian strike munitions manage to penetrate Ukrainian airspace and, as such, offer observers a window into the porosity of Ukrainian air defence coverage.

The above unofficial map is the product of one of Ukraine’s largest open-source strike munition tracking/early warning efforts, which draws upon both official alerts offered by the Ukrainian military and open-source datapoints, such as recorded footage from mobile phones and similar. Being unofficial and being undoubtedly based on incomplete and limited data, the trajectories depicted for various Russian strike munitions in the above map should be considered illustrative, not authoritative—these maps are not derived from radar tracking data. The above map, which notably appears to be inaccurate, seeing as how it depicts a greater number of 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missile launches than is the case of the Ukrainian military’s latest press release, which was released after the publication of the above map, depicts illustrative propeller-driven strike drone and decoy drone trajectories in yellow, illustrative sea-launched 3M-14 cruise missile trajectories in green, illustrative air-launched Kh-101 cruise missiles trajectories in red, and illustrative 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missiles trajectories in orange.

The main takeaway from the above map is that Ukraine’s air defences appear to remain very porous. Leakers that penetrate the forward-most “lines” of Ukrainian air defences appear to make it through hundreds of kilometers in Ukrainian airspace, and the land-attack cruise missiles and strike drones that appear to have impacted the ground around Lviv and Ternopil in western Ukraine evidently bypassed most “lines” of Ukrainian air defences. Observers operating with access to publicly available information can only speculate as to why the leakers got as far as they did and, more importantly, have no way of knowing where/when Russian strike munitions were successfully intercepted and how these were intercepted. There is a world of difference in a scenario in which, for example, Ukraine launched a total of 40 surface-to-air and/or air-to-air missiles to successfully intercept 34 of the 40—85%—Kh-101 cruise missiles that Russia is said to have launched and one in which, for example, it launched 60, or 80, surface-to-air and/or air-to-air missiles to successfully intercept 34 of the 40—85%—cruise missiles that Russia is said to have launched.

While the air-launched Kh-101 can be equipped with infrared countermeasures, cruise missiles and strike drones generally do not “evade” surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles in the manner of crewed combat aircraft and tend not to feature countermeasures of any sort. Surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles may, however, miss their intended target and more generally malfunction in flight, and the air defence systems and/or fighter aircraft that are positioned to undertake an engagement attempt against one or more cruise missiles may be overwhelmed/saturated by the number of targets in their vicinity and/or exhaust the number of ready-to-fire surface-to-air/air-to-air missiles that can be launched in the brief window in which even a subsonic—but low-flying—cruise missile remains within the engagement range of a given air defence system or fighter aircraft (fighter aircraft have limited range-endurance as with any aircraft in addition to a limited munitions load, whereas ground-based air defence systems only have a limited number of ready-to-fire munitions). It bears emphasis that air defence systems and fighter aircraft can only engage a finite number of targets at a time, in addition to having a limited temporal window to engage moving targets.

The level of effort and amount of expense that Ukraine puts into attaining its claimed air defence performance can be expressed in terms of a munitions exchange and/or cost exchange ratio. There is a difference, for example, between using an AIM-120 air-to-air missile or a MIM-104D (PAC-2) surface-to-air missile to undertake a (probabilistically successful) interception attempt of a Kh-101 or 3M-14 subsonic land-attack cruise missile. If the ratio of surface-to-air and/or air-to-air missiles launched to Russian cruise missiles is 1:1, then the Ukrainian interception figures can be more or less taken at face value. If, however, Ukraine is launching an average of more than one surface-to-air and/or air-to-air missile per Russian cruise missile, then the exchange ratio will be far less favourable to Ukraine. Given the unit production costs of the likes of the AIM-120 and MIM-104D, the cost exchange ratio will also be far less favourable for Ukraine. It nevertheless bears emphasis that cost exchange ratios, which focus on the marginal cost of interception, are better understood as abstractions. Ukraine is, after all, primarily using surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles that have been paid for and donated by countries, while Russia, like other countries, cannot produce an infinite number of cruise missiles due to production capacity constraints, even if the cost exchange ratio was exceedingly favourable.

While the specifics of the surface-to-air missiles and/or air-to-air missiles that Ukraine uses in its air defence efforts are not public knowledge, it goes without saying that not everything is as expensive or as limited in terms of availability as the AIM-120 or the MIM-104D—or the likes of the Aster 30, IRIS-T, and the many other air defence systems that Ukraine currently operates. The cost exchange ratio is far more favourable to Ukraine when Soviet-built surface-to-air and/or air-to-air missiles are used in interception efforts, even if these older missiles tend to be less reliable and less effective—which can manifest itself in a higher penetration rate for Russian missiles. The cost exchange ratio is also far more favourable to Ukraine when older donated Western missiles, such as the AIM-9M, Aspide, Crotale, MIM-23 HAWK, as well as shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (i.e., MANPADS) of any origin are used in interception efforts. Whatever the composition of the likely very heterogeneous array of surface-to-air and/or air-to-air missiles that Ukraine launches—expends—on a given day, it is possible, even likely, that Ukraine is launching on average more than one surface-to-air and/or air-to-air missile for every cruise missile that Russia launches. As a result, Russia’s penetration rate—reportedly 85% for the most recent salvo of 40 Kh-101 air-launched subsonic cruise missiles and 0% for the most recent salvo of 7 3M-14 Kalibr sea-launched subsonic cruise missiles—may be very unimpressive at face value, but Ukraine may be heavily exerting itself—perhaps unsustainably overexerting itself—to attain these interception figures, and current—now past—performance may not necessarily be indicative of future performance.

Wars are not, of course, mechanistically determined by exchange ratios and cost exchange ratios, and Russian target selection as it concerns the use of land-attack cruise missiles and ballistic missiles—as opposed to far less expensive and far more readily available propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones and decoy drones—likely reflects its actual targeting priorities, not merely what it perceives to be the most effective approach to exhausting Ukraine’s air defences. Stated differently, the Russian military almost certainly wants all of its cruise missiles to hit their intended targets, even though that is not a realistic expectation against Ukraine’s fully alerted and fully mobilized air defences—which are being quite lavishly resupplied and supported by Ukraine’s foreign backers—in a war that is fast heading toward the start of its fifth year.

On The Issue Of Salvo Size

In an ideal world, Russia would modify the Kh-101 and 3M-14 Kalibr and/or develop new clean-sheet land-attack cruise missiles with much lower radar and infrared signatures that could, all else being equal, attain a much better penetration rate against Ukraine’s current and future air defence capabilities. In the real world, Russia’s primary approaches to improving the penetration rate of its cruise missiles are:

• Increasing the number of cruise missiles launched, which is to say increasing salvo sizes. This can be done by increasing the production of long-deployed cruise missile designs like the Kh-101 and 3M-14 and/or increasing the production of more recently introduced lower payload-range—and less expensive—cruise missiles, such as the ground-launched Banderol, as well as cruise missile analogues, such as the Geran-3, which is a turbojet-powered version/derivative of the ordinarily propeller-driven Shahed-136/Geran-2 strike drone.

• Improving intelligence on the dispositions of Ukrainian air defences so as to improve route planning with the aim of having cruise missiles fly preprogrammed flight paths that avoid as many Ukrainian air defences as possible.

• Targeting Ukraine’s ground-based air defence systems—its surface-to-air missile systems and accompanying radars, its stored/non-ready-for-launch surface-to-air missiles, its fighter aircraft and fighter aircraft bases/infrastructure, and so forth, to degrade Ukraine’s ability to sustain its claimed air defence performance. This is a critically important series of capability areas in which Russia has been consistently and woefully underperforming since February 2022.

• Exhausting and overwhelming Ukraine’s air defences through other means, namely the very large-scale use of less expensive propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones in the vein of the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya, as well as decoy drones in the vein of the Gerbera.

Whatever approach or combinations thereof Russia pursues, subsonic land-attack cruise missiles and similar are unlikely to have a very high penetration rate against Ukraine’s fully alerted and mobilized air defences unless these are launched in truly large salvos. Simply stated, Russia needs to launch very large salvos, something in the region of 100 cruise missiles, if not more, if it intends to more effectively employ its cruise missile arsenal. It is important to emphasize that this is not simply about improving the penetration rate for Russian cruise missiles; it is also about improving the terminal effects on the intended targets of Russian cruise missiles. Subsonic land-attack cruise missiles are typically equipped with, at most, a 400-500 kilogram high-explosive warhead. The destructive radius and destructive effects of such warheads are non-trivial but nevertheless limited, and targets such as power plants, factories, airbases, and similar are typically composed of multiple, perhaps dozens, of discrete aim points, each of which must be serviced by at least one such warhead. Absent a 100% penetration rate—as well as a 100% reliability rate and 100% accuracy rate—large salvos are required in any event to heavily damage or destroy many potential targets in Ukraine.

While Kh-101 and 3M-14 launches tend to be sporadic and very limited in scale—the most recent Russian cruise missile salvo is atypically large—as a result of Russia’s limited production capacity and consequent limited inventory of such cruise missiles that are available for immediate use, it is important to bear in mind that Russia faces a major constraint in terms of the maximum number of cruise missiles that it can launch on a given day.

Only a subset of the Russian bomber fleet, namely certain Tu-95 versions and Tu-160 bombers, is capable of launching the Kh-101. Russia’s bomber fleet was not only significantly attrited on 1 June 2025 in Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, but the growing threat posed by Ukraine’s long-range strike munitions to Russian bomber bases has forced Russia to redeploy the bulk of its serviceable bomber aircraft to bases east of the Ural Mountains. To launch Kh-101 cruise missile against Ukraine, these bombers must redeploy to airbases in Western Russia before being loaded with Kh-101 missiles. As a result of this peculiar and inefficient imposed operational approach, Russia is rapidly running up the flight hours on a fleet that is primarily composed of decades-old Soviet-built bomber aircraft that Russia is poorly positioned to replace for the foreseeable future. Given this, the maximum salvo of Kh-101 cruise missiles that Russia can launch is inherently quite limited, and the in-production Kh-101 has a design that is not well-suited for adaptation into a ground-launched configuration.

The issue of salvo size also affects the 3M-14 Kalibr sea-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missile, which can presently only be launched by the remaining warships and submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, as well as the Russian Caspian Flotilla (which can access the Black Sea via Russian internal waters, including the Volga-Don Canal). Russia’s approach to employing the 3M-14 in the specific military-geographical context of the Russia-Ukraine War is extremely inefficient, with Russian warships and submarines in the Black Sea undertaking very brief sorties to reach launch points situated several dozen kilometers from the Russian coastline to launch 3M-14 Kalibr cruise missiles that could have just as easily reached their targets had these been launched from the nearest point of land, if not much further inland. There is presently no indication that Russia has adapted the ordinarily sea-launched 3M-14 for launch from either a semi-mobile or fully mobile terrestrial launcher. Unless Russia does so, the maximum salvo size for the 3M-14 will be affected by the very limited number of Russian warships and submarines capable of launching this land-attack cruise missile that are within range of Ukraine—the 3M-14-equipped vessels of the Russian Baltic Fleet, Northern Fleet, and Pacific Fleet cannot reinforce the Black Sea Fleet or, more generally, bring their 3M-14 cruise missiles within range of Ukraine.

While Russia does deploy ground-launched land-attack cruise missiles, namely the 9M727/9M728, which is also known as the Iskander-K, as well as the longer-range 9M729, the deployment of which is understood to be the immediate cause of the demise of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, these subsonic land-attack cruise missiles are also sporadically launched as a result of Russia’s limited production capacity and consequent limited inventories of 9M727/9M728 and 9M729 cruise missiles that are available for immediate use. While ground-launched land-attack cruise missiles have limitations and are not, as such, unalloyed goods, stationary, semi-mobile, and mobile terrestrial launchers are nevertheless far simpler and less expensive than bomber aircraft, warships, and submarines.

If Russia is to launch very large salvos of, say, one hundred or more land-attack cruise missiles against Ukraine, it will almost certainly have to prioritize the production of ground-launched land-attack cruise missiles, or at least cruise missiles that can also be launched from the ground. While this should be doable with the sea-launched 3M-14, the air-launched Kh-101 has design features that make this more difficult—but not impossible—to adapt for ground-launch, and the 9M727/9M728 and the 9M729 are already exclusively launched from the ground. The recent unveiling of a ground-launched version of the ordinarily air-launched Banderol and the ongoing use of the turbojet-powered Geran-3, which is a version/derivative of the propeller-driven Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya, suggests that Russia is gradually and belatedly heading in this direction, but it bears emphasis that the Banderol, Geran-3, and the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya are all operated by the Russian army/ground forest, not the Russian air force. The Russian army is also the sole operator of the ground-launched 9M727/9M728 and 9M729 subsonic land-attack cruise missiles, which appear to be built and used in very limited numbers—especially in the case of the longer-range 9M729—on a much more sporadic basis than the air-launched Kh-101 (the Russian army is also the sole operator of the 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missile). Given the above, the Russian service branch that operates ground-launched long-range strike munitions does not appear to be heavily pushing for a reallocation of resources toward prioritizing 9M727/9M728 and 9M729 production, or adapting the 3M-14 and Kh-101 for use with terrestrial launchers. The effectiveness of Russian cruise missiles will, as such, be constrained by limited salvo size, independent of Russia’s limited production capacity and consequent limited inventory of land-attack cruise missiles that are available for immediate use.

There are 297 days in the time frame for which Russia is said to have launched a total of around 820 9M723 Iskander, 9-A-7660 Kinzhal, and North Korean-made KN-23 ballistic missiles. Supposing that Ukraine’s disclosures are accurate, Russia launched an average of just 2.76 ballistic missiles per day over a 297-day period in 2025. This amounts to a total of 1007 ballistic missiles on an annualized basis. These numbers are, of course, very unimpressive even in a context in which Russian ballistic missile launches against targets far behind the frontline, as opposed to short-notice “dynamic” attacks against fleeting battlefield targets, are decidedly sporadic.

In late 2024, a Ukrainian military intelligence official placed an upper limit on Russia’s annual capacity for Iskander ballistic missile production at 600 units. While production capacity appears to have been increased over the course of 2025 for the Iskander, as with other Russian strike munitions, and notwithstanding the enduring Russian practice of stockpiling strike munitions for use in a crisis or conflict with NATO that may take place during the still active phase of the Russia-Ukraine War, Russia is poorly positioned to undertake even a brief high-intensity strike campaign using ballistic missiles in the manner of China or Iran for the foreseeable future. This will require the capacity to launch at least a hundred or so ballistic missiles per day over the course of multiple days, if not multiple weeks. To undertake such a strike campaign, Russia will need to have a ready-for-use arsenal of at least 1000-2000 ballistic missiles. With Russia seemingly limited to launching a total of around 830 ballistic missiles over a 297-day-long period in 2025 and notwithstanding ongoing stockpiling, Russia appears to be far from being in a position to undertake even a brief high-intensity strike campaign using ballistic missiles.

Should Russia’s annual production output of ballistic missiles in a post-war era be sustained in the region of 600-1000 units, Russia will require several years to put in place a ready-for-use arsenal of 1000-2000 ballistic missiles. Russia’s resources are not unlimited, and the war has taken a major toll on not just the Russian economy but also the finances of the Russian state. A larger Russian ballistic missile arsenal is possible, but it will invariably come with the opportunity cost of forgone resource allocations in other areas. Russia’s ballistic missiles are understood to have had a low penetration rate in the Russia-Ukraine War, which is to say that Ukraine’s air defences are understood to have sustained a high interception rate against Russian ballistic missiles. Ukraine is set to receive additional air defence systems with ballistic missile interception capabilities, and multiple European countries are not only acquiring such systems but also expanding their arsenals of ballistic missile defence-capable surface-to-air missiles. As a result, Russia must significantly expand its arsenal of conventionally-armed short-range ballistic missiles merely to restore its ballistic missile-based strike capabilities to its February 2022 state, let alone greatly expand upon it.

Some relevant posts:

While Russia’s so-called “strategic” nuclear weapons are primarily delivered by high-probability-of-penetration intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the country continues to deploy large numbers of nuclear-armed cruise missiles of both the subsonic and supersonic varieties to attack terrestrial and maritime targets. When it is deployed, the Izdeliye-506/Kh-BD will provide the Russian Air Force’s nuclear-armed bombers with a longer-range cruise missile than the existing subsonic Kh-102, which is the nuclear-armed version of the more widely deployed conventionally-armed Kh-101 air-launched land-attack cruise missile. Although a greater nominal maximum range can be used to attack more distant targets, Russia may use the Kh-BD’s extended range for two other purposes.

First, a longer-range nuclear-armed land-attack cruise missile will allow Russian bomber aircraft to attack targets in North America from a greater standoff range from North America. This is an important consideration given the vulnerabilities of Russia’s non-low-observable bomber aircraft and the impracticality of employing Russian fighter aircraft to escort Russian bomber aircraft in the Arctic Circle while the bombers undertake nuclear strike missions. If Russia deployed low-observable bomber aircraft designs in the vein of the American B-2 and B-21, a longer-range nuclear-armed subsonic land-attack cruise missile in the vein of the Kh-BD would likely have been a less appealing investment.

Second, a longer-range nuclear-armed land-attack cruise missile can be used to fly more circuitous routes than is possible with the (comparatively) shorter-range Kh-102. This will, in principle, increase the probable penetration rate of nuclear-armed Kh-BD cruise missiles, provided that Russia has accurate intelligence on the dispositions of adversary air defences. While this approach can be used to attack targets in North America, it can also be used to attack targets in Europe so as to bypass NATO’s forward-most air defences. Specifically, a longer-range cruise missile in the form of the Kh-BD that is launched from northern Russia will be able to undertake an extended and circuitous flight over the Atlantic Ocean so as to approach and attack targets in Europe from a less expected direction.

Whatever the actual maximum range of the Kh-BD, no discussion of Russian cruise missiles is complete without mention of how Russia’s conventionally-armed subsonic land-attack cruise missiles are understood to have had a low penetration rate against Ukraine, which is to say that Ukraine’s air defences are understood to have sustained a high interception rate against Russian land-attack cruise missiles. It remains to be seen whether and how the Kh-BD will fare much better against adversary air defences than the air-launched Kh-101, which is the conventionally-armed version of the nuclear-armed Kh-102, has in the Russia-Ukraine War.

While the non-nuclear 3M-14 Kalibr has seen extensive use in the hands of the Russian Black Sea Fleet over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War, this and other Russian land-attack cruise missiles are understood to have had a low penetration rate, which is to say that Ukraine’s air defences are understood to have sustained a high interception rate against Russian land-attack cruise missiles. While undesirable other than in terms of inducing the expenditure of an adversary’s finite stocks of anti-aircraft missiles, the low penetration rate of Russian land-attack cruise missiles against Ukraine calls into question the viability of the nuclear-armed sea-launched 3M-14S as well as the Kh-102 subsonic air-launched land-attack cruise missile, which is the nuclear-armed version of the better-known and more widely deployed Kh-101. It bears emphasis that the air-launched Kh-101, which is exclusively carried and launched by the Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers of the Russian Air Force, is understood to have also had a low penetration rate over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War.

Although Russia’s so-called “strategic” nuclear weapons are primarily delivered by high-probability-of-penetration intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the country continues to deploy large numbers of nuclear-armed cruise missiles of both the subsonic and supersonic varieties to attack both terrestrial and maritime targets. Without nuclear-armed cruise missiles or nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and similar, Russia will, in practice, be poorly positioned to undertake small-scale regional nuclear strikes against adversaries with advanced air defence capabilities, such as the United States and European NATO countries, without using one or more of its nuclear-armed ICBMs.

It remains to be seen whether and how Russia will upgrade the design of the 3M-14S and Kh-102, among other nuclear-armed Russian strike munitions, so as to attain a higher penetration rate. Russia may, over time, pivot away from nuclear-armed subsonic cruise missiles and place greater emphasis on high-speed strike munitions that cannot be so readily targeted by widely deployed lower-end air defence capabilities such as anti-aircraft artillery and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. Alternatively, Russia may develop new land-attack cruise missile designs that, among other things, have significantly reduced radar and infrared signatures. In the interim, the Russian Navy is likely to deploy the 3M-14S at sea, even though it is another fast-wasting Russian military asset with a quite poor prognosis for future effectiveness against fast-modernizing adversary militaries.

Cruise Missiles

According to Militarnyi, the leaked Russian procurement documents indicate that the 9M728 land-attack cruise missile, which the Ukrainian military refers to as the Iskander-K, remains in production. A total of 303 9M728 cruise missiles were reportedly contracted for delivery in the 2024-2025 timeframe at an average cost of around US$1.5 million per missile. The 9M728 is a vestige of the now-defunct Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty). To comply with the range and payload restrictions of the INF Treaty, the 9M728 has a reported maximum range of 500 kilometers while equipped with a 480-kilogram warhead. The ongoing production of the 9M728 in the post-INF Treaty era is likely explained by the existence of an active production line that Russia was unwilling to shut down in wartime in light of the major shortfall of strike munitions from February 2022 onward. While this amounts to a plausible, even logical, explanation for the continued production of the 9M728, this land-attack cruise missile is far too limited in range to be practically employed even in the specific military-geographical context of the Russia-Ukraine War, let alone against targets spread out across NATO member states. It is not clear why Russia has not substituted payload for range so as to develop a lower-payload but extended-range version of the 9M728 that can be used to attack targets in Ukraine located further from the frontlines/international border.

The 9M728 appears to remain in production alongside the much longer-range 9M729, a closely related land-attack cruise missile that was the proximate cause for the demise of the INF Treaty. Whereas the 9M728 is reported to have a maximum range of less than 500 kilometers, the 9M729 is said to have a maximum range of more than 2000 kilometers. According to Militaryni, Russia was contracted to receive 95 9M729 cruise missiles in 2025 with an average cost in the region of US$1.4-1.8 million per missile. Supposing that the reported cost figures for the 9M728 and 9M729 are both accurate, Russia evidently has little reason to maintain the shorter-range 9M728 in production once the war comes to an end and Russian industry has time to reallocate production capacity toward higher-priority armaments. It bears emphasis that there is little information in the public sphere to indicate the large-scale use of the 9M729 in the Russia-Ukraine War. It is possible, even likely, that these long-range land-attack cruise missiles, which can be used to attack targets well beyond even the most distant sections of Ukrainian territory, are being stockpiled with a war with NATO in mind.

The 9M728 and 9M729 are related to the sea-launched 3M14, which is better known as the Kalibr. The so-called “Kalibrization” of the Russian navy over the 2010s led to the absurd manner in which Russia has employed 3M14 land-attack cruise missiles over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War. The relevant surface ships and submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet leave port, launch a handful of available 3M14 land-attack cruise missiles, and immediately return to port to rearm (assuming that reloads are available). All things considered, Russia would be better served if 3M14 Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles could be launched from a ground-based launcher to attack targets in Ukraine—the irregular sorties of the remaining warships of the Black Sea Fleet with the aim of launching such long-range cruise missiles against fairly proximate targets in Ukraine amount to a needless waste of fuel.

Whatever the shortcomings of the 3M-14 in the specific military-geographical context of the Russia-Ukraine War, this naval land-attack cruise missile design remains useful to the Russian military in other contexts and for other roles. According to Militarnyi, Russia contracted the manufacturer to deliver a total of 240 3M-14 cruise missiles in the 2022-2024 timeframe, and an additional 450 3M-14 cruise missiles in the 2025-2026 timeframe. According to Militaryni, the average cost of each 3M-14 was US$2 million. Militarnyi reports that Russia ordered an additional 56 nuclear-armed 3M-14S cruise missiles for delivery between 2024 and 2026.

The bulk of the land-attack cruise missiles that Russia has employed in the Russia-Ukraine War are air-launched designs, particularly the in-production Kh-101, which is launched by Tu-95 and Tu-160 bomber aircraft—Russia’s Tu-22M bombers can only launch Kh-22/Kh-32 supersonic cruise missiles. According to Militaryni, Russia ordered 525 Kh-101 air-launched land-attack cruise missiles for delivery in 2024 at an average cost of around US$2 million per missile. According to Militarnyi, Russia ordered an additional 700 Kh-101 missiles for delivery in 2025 at an average cost of US$2 million-2.4 million per missile.

It is worth noting that the 9M728 and 9M729 are operated by the Russian army, the Kh-101 by the Russian air force, and the 3M-14 by the Russian navy. The Russian army also operates the Geran-3, which is a turbojet-powered version of the ordinarily propeller-driven Shahed-136/Geran-2 strike drone. The Russian army—not the Russian air force—also operates the air-launched Banderol land-attack cruise missile. Russia recently unveiled a ground-launched version of the Banderol, which will presumably also be operated by the Russian army, at a military-industrial event in Perm.

Ballistic Missiles

The primary non-nuclear ballistic missile employed by the Russian military is the 9M723 Iskander, which is operated by the Russian army. An INF Treaty-compliant design, the Russian army deployed the Iskander to replace the OTR-21 Tochka, a much shorter-range Soviet ballistic missile design that fulfilled a very different battlefield role. Although the Russian army units operating the Iskander were primarily intended to operate in support of corps- and division-sized ground combat formations, wartime necessity and the absence of meaningful availability of substitutes have resulted in the regular employment of Iskander ballistic missiles as both a deep strike munition in pre-planned attacks and a means of undertaking short-notice “dynamic” attacks against fleeting battlefield targets. According to Militaryni, Russia ordered 1202 Iskander ballistic missiles for delivery in the 2024-2025 timeframe. These ballistic missiles were reportedly ordered in several distinct warhead configurations at a unit cost of between US$2 million-3 million per missile.

With a maximum range of 500 kilometers while equipped with a 500-kilogram warhead, the 9M723 Iskander lacks the range required to attack targets in much of Ukraine. Russia has reportedly been working on an extended-range version or derivative of the 9M723 Iskander. The Militaryni report speculates that a contract for 18 9M723-2 ballistic missiles may refer to an extended-range Iskander version/derivative. If and when Russia deploys a 1000-kilometer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missile, it will be able to attack targets located in most of Ukraine with what remains a high probability of penetration strike munition, notwithstanding the gradually increasing deployment of Patriot and SAMP/T ballistic missile defence-capable air defence systems across Ukraine. Such a ballistic missile will also allow Russia to undertake more complex multi-axis ballistic missile attacks against a wide range of targets in Ukraine, which is one approach to defeating air defence systems that rely on radars that have a fixed 120° field of view.

While the Russian army operates the 9M723 Iskander, the Russian air force operates an air-launched ballistic missile, the 9-S-7760 Kinzhal, which the Ukrainian military regularly refers to as the Kh-47. A single 9-S-7760 Kinzhal can be carried by launched by each specially configured MiG-31K aircraft, a small number of which are operated by the Russian air force’s Long Range Aviation, which otherwise operates Tu-22M, Tu-95, and Tu-160 bomber aircraft. The performance of the Kinzhal has been underwhelming throughout the Russia-Ukraine War. While this dynamic has been shaped by both baseless Russian hype and widespread misunderstanding as to what a “hypersonic” air-launched ballistic missile is and is not, it ultimately reflects the limitations of this Russian strike munition. According to Militaryni, Russia contracted for the delivery of 44 Kinzhal missiles in 2024 and an additional 144 air-launched ballistic missiles in 2025 at an average unit cost of US$4.5 million.

While the Kinzhal offers flexibility and greater range than the Iskander, the difference in cost and the very small salvo sizes that Russia can sustain with the small fleet of specially configured MiG-31K aircraft, as well as its underwhelming performance against Ukraine, raises questions about the long-term role of the 9-S-7760 in the Russian military. Israeli and Chinese air-launched ballistic missiles constitute examples of designs that Russia may emulate going forward.

The Militaryni article does not mention the 300 mm diameter guided artillery rockets used with the Russian army’s BM-30 Smerch and Tornado-S systems, which are more natural replacements for the OTR-21 Tochka short-range ballistic missiles than the 9M723 Iskander in battlefield support roles in a context in which the Russian air force is poorly positioned to undertake close air support strikes, let alone interdiction strikes behind the frontlines. The scale at which Russia has been producing guided 300 mm artillery rockets—short-range and low apogee/maximum altitude ballistic missiles by another name—is not public knowledge. It bears emphasis that there is little indication of the widespread and regular use of such missiles over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War.

One of the most consequential non-events in the Russia-Ukraine War has been the apparent non-availability of large numbers of guided 300 mm artillery rockets, with large numbers here referring to the availability of such an arsenal as to sustain the expenditure of at least several hundred such missiles per month. It is worth noting that the United States is currently producing over 14,000 of the admittedly much smaller, lighter, and shorter-range 227 mm GMLRS guided artillery rockets/missiles per year and plans to increase output to 28,000 GMLRS guided artillery rockets/missiles per year in 2028. The Russia-Ukraine War would likely have taken on a very different course had Russia been able to attain an annualized 300 mm diameter guided artillery rocket production output even an order of magnitude smaller than the United States’ current output of GMLRS missiles (i.e., some 1400 300 mm diameter guided artillery rockets per year).

Another Russian ballistic missile not mentioned in the Militarnyi report is the Oreshnik, which is understood to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) design. As of this writing, it is unclear which Russian military service will operate the Oreshnik. The Russian army may be a natural candidate given its experience with the 9M723 Iskander, but Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, which operate its nuclear-armed ground-based intercontinental-range ballistic missiles of both the silo-based and mobile wheeled launcher variety, has much more experience with operating such a large and long-range ballistic missile design. Should the Oreshnik be developed and deployed in a conventionally armed configuration while operated by Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, this long-exclusively nuclear-armed part of the Russian and Soviet militaries may evolve along the lines of China’s People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force. Such a development will likely affect how Russia will approach conventionally armed ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 1000 or more kilometers.

If there are any “universal” lessons of the Russia-Ukraine War that can be readily extrapolated to other countries and contexts, these concern how strike munitions must be available in very large numbers at the outset of a major war and production capacity must exist to quickly replenish stocks over the course of a war. Russia went to war in February 2022 without a suitably sized arsenal of strike munitions and a very limited capacity to quickly replenish its rapidly depleted stocks, let alone greatly expand upon such stocks. As a result, Russia’s strike campaigns have been essentially undertaken hand-to-mouth over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War, with little scope for Russia to build up a meaningful stockpile without severely throttling launch activity. Only the availability of Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya single-use propeller-driven strike drones has allowed to undertake regular large-scale strike munitions launches against targets located more than 50 or so kilometers from the frontlines, and it bears emphasis that the non-availability of other strike munitions in the required numbers has led Russia to regularly employ its Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones in a decidedly suboptimal manner as an ersatz cruise missile. The recent reporting from Militarnyi may suggest that Russia is rapidly expanding its strike munition arsenal, but wartime realities mean that restrictive supply continues to throttle demand.

Commentary-themed posts are intended to broach or highlight a specific issue, not limited to recent and ongoing events. These posts will typically be much shorter and less detailed than analysis-themed posts.

One of the more consequential but oft-overlooked aspects of the Russia-Ukraine War is that it has taken on the form of a one-sided proxy conflict. While Kyiv undoubtedly has agency—states and non-state actors alike can be willing proxies of third parties and can be motivated by, among other things, perceived self-interest and preference alignment, the United States in particular and European countries more generally are, in effect, using Ukraine as a proxy through which to indirectly wage war against Russia—in retaliation for, of course, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There are countless manifestations of this proxy war dynamic, including regular reports of the provisioning of targeting intelligence to the Ukrainian military and, most recently, high-level discussions concerning the transfer of American Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles to Ukraine. The case of the reported possibly forthcoming transfer of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles to Ukraine is particularly notable in that media reports indicate that these missiles may be operated in Ukraine by American military contractors—i.e., American citizens who were formerly part of the American military—who will be officially subordinate to Kyiv in a context in whcih the Ukrainian military would not—and could not—independently operate the Tomahawk missiles and associated launchers.

As indicated in the above paragraph, the notion that one country or another is a proxy for one or more countries that are not formally involved in a two-party conflict concerns statements of fact—the term proxy is not pejorative and says nothing about the validity and legitimacy of one armed struggle for another. There is a case to be made that one of the reasons for the widespread reluctance to recognize that the Russia-Ukraine War is—at once—Ukraine’s war for national political survival and a proxy conflict between the United States and Russia is that it is a one-sided proxy war. That is, Russia has done relatively very little in terms of cultivating and employing one or more proxies against the United States and European countries more generally since February 2022. The recent and ongoing discussion of the possible transfer of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles is a case in point—there is little in the way of serious public discussion that Russia may, for example, retaliate by transferring conventionally armed strike munitions to, for example, Venezuela, which is currently engaged in an ongoing American-initiated military standoff with the United States in the Caribbean Sea.

From September 2001 through August 2021, the tens of thousands of American military personnel deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the greater Middle East constituted exposed and highly lucrative targets for any country that sought to indirectly retaliate against the United States. The scope for a consequential Russian proxy conflict directed against the United States was, in other words, very high until August 2021, and Russia had the option of cultivating one or more proxies if the Kremlin was intent on inflicting human losses on the American military in the immediate aftermath of the Russian occupation and annexation of Crimea, including in response to American—and European—military aid in the formally undeclared Russia-Ukraine War that followed in eastern Ukraine. Since August 2021, however, Russia has not only had much reduced opportunities to undertake a proxy conflict against the United States, but any sober Russian cost-benefit analysis would have to take into account how few American military personnel remained deployed in places like Iraq and Syria. The window for a consequential Russian proxy conflict of the conventional variety had, as such, closed by February 2022.

Some reported—seemingly inconsequential—dealings with Ansarallah in Yemen notwithstanding, the Kremlin has primarily huffed and puffed about the ongoing and, in qualitative terms, escalating/deepening American and European military aid to Ukraine. It is, however, a mistake to think that Russia has no proxy through which to inflict longer-term negative military effects—not casualties—on the United States in particular. As things stand, Russia is already waging a different type of proxy “war” against the United States, one that reportedly entails both Russian technical support and material assistance to North Korea. According to statements from South Korean officials, Russia may be assisting North Korean efforts in the interrelated areas of (nuclear-armed) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology and nuclear-powered submarine technology.

The primary target of North Korean ICBMs, including those of the sea-launched variety that North Korea appears intent to eventually deploy, is, of course, the United States. Such reported Russian technical support and material assistance to North Korea may not result in the injury or death of any American citizens, including American military personnel, but it does, of course, inflict very grave long-term negative military effects—not casualties—on the United States. While the reported Russia-North Korea dynamic does not lend itself to a rapid tit-for-tat Russian retaliation via proxy for American actions such as the possibly forthcoming transfer of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles to Ukraine, the key point to consider is that Moscow remains well-positioned to impose serious and escalating costs on the United States for American policies vis-a-vis Russia in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War. In an important sense, Russia has left the proverbial ball in America’s court—the United States decides how much Russia is willing to assist North Korea in its development and deployment of nuclear weapons that can be used against the United States.

While Russia is undoubtedly limited in terms of proxies through which to retaliate against the United States and others in conventional terms for their escalating/deepening support for Ukraine, it is important to recognize that Russia is far from toothless when it comes to waging a proxy conflict. Russia’s North Korea-centric proxy war against the United States is, moreover, likely to have long-lasting and far-reaching consequences for international security, irrespective of how and when the Russia-Ukraine War draws to a close.

News analysis-themed posts typically focus on recent developments. These posts will tend to be much shorter and less detailed than analysis-themed posts.

Ukraine initiated another strike campaign targeting Russia’s energy infrastructure over the summer. While full of spectacle, the preceding Ukrainian strike campaigns had limited effects on the course of the Russia-Ukraine War for reasons that I discussed in a post from August 2025.

The most recent Ukrainian strike campaign targeting Russia’s energy infrastructure has, however, been far more effective and far more consequential. While there is disagreement as to the exact level of damage sustained against specific nodes of Russia’s energy infrastructure, Russia is currently experiencing country-wide shortages of refined petroleum products, including both gasoline/petrol and diesel, following concerted Ukrainian strikes on dozens of sites across western Russia, including pipeline pumping stations and oil refineries. It bears emphasis that Russia remains the world’s third-largest oil producer—refining and distribution, not extraction, appear to be the primary targets of Ukraine’s latest strike campaign—and that only specific parts of sprawling Russian oil refineries have been targeted—most of the structures at the targeted refineries are undamaged and intact. It remains to be seen how quickly Russia can bring the affected refineries back online, even if in a degraded capacity, so as to alleviate the ongoing country-wide shortages of petroleum products across the country.

Given the above, Ukraine has evidently managed to increase the penetration rate of its long-range strike munitions, which is to say propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones and turbojet-powered cruise missiles. That is, Ukrainian planners appear to have developed a far more sophisticated and more holistic understanding of the dispositions and limitations of Russian air defences in a given sector. As I explained in the post from August 2025, we are likely dealing with a situation in which only a small fraction of Ukrainian strike munitions launched penetrate Russian air defences and reach their intended targets, but the non-zero number of leakers—in some cases just one or two Ukrainian propeller-driven strike drones—leave their mark as a result of Russia’s ineffectual implementation—non-existent in many areas—of rear-area short-range air defences across the vast expanse of Russian territory west of the Ural Mountains. Furthermore, the outsized damage resulting from the repeated targeting of very specific types of essential equipment at Russian oil refineries in Ukraine’s latest strike campaign against Russia’s energy infrastructure suggests substantially improved target intelligence and weaponeering.

In the absence of contradictory information, observers operating with access to publicly available information had reason to think that Ukraine had—somehow—managed to independently constitute an increasingly effective long-range strike capability against Russia, one that neither depended on the United States and European countries for the provisioning of the involved strike munitions or, crucially, the provision of the requisite intelligence and targeting support. Recent reporting from the Financial Times, however, indicates that the United States has, since July 2025, been directly enabling Ukraine’s strike campaign against Russian energy infrastructure as part of a gambit to weaken the Russian war economy and bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

The US intelligence helps Kyiv shape route planning, altitude, timing and mission decisions, enabling Ukraine’s long-range, one-way attack drones to evade Russian air defences, said the officials familiar with the matter.

Three people familiar with the operation said Washington was closely involved in all stages of planning. A US official said Ukraine selected the targets for long-range strikes and Washington then provided intelligence on the sites’ vulnerabilities.

Uncertainties notwithstanding, the latest reporting suggests that while Ukraine may now possess an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of more or less indigenous propeller-driven strike drones and cruise missiles, it appears to still lack the intelligence and targeting capabilities required to employ these in as effective and consequential a manner as it has against Russian energy infrastructure in recent months. It remains to be seen how Ukraine’s steadily expanding and improving strike capabilities will fare if and when a mercurial White House decides to pull the proverbial plug on this previously unpublicized form of support. This saga includes an important lesson that is relevant beyond the Russia-Ukraine War: there is more to effective long-range strike capabilities than the mere existence of strike munitions of requisite range.

The exhibition was held in one of the newly constructed buildings at the Motovilikha facility.

While artillery and air defence systems constituted the bulk of the equipment on display, a diverse array of strike munitions amounted to some of the most notable inclusions.

A Possible Guided Glide Bomb

One of the strike munitions on display features large—possibly fixed—wings, two suspension lugs, and a cylindrical airframe. Available imagery does not offer any indication of the presence of a propulsion system. Supposing that this is an unpowered design, this is likely to be an extended-range guided glide bomb.

A Possible Air-Launched Cruise Missile

Another strike munition on display is likely to be either an air-launched cruise missile or an air-launched guided glide bomb. While available imagery does not offer any indication of the presence of a propulsion system, it is worth noting that an apparent turbojet engine was on display right in front of this strike munition. The Russian air force is in desperate need of a medium-range standoff strike munition, whether powered or unpowered, that offers a greater range than the UMPK and UMPB guided glide bombs while equipped with a heavier warhead than the likes of the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone, which can be equipped with a 90-kilogram warhead in a reduced-range configuration.

A Surface-Launched Banderol Cruise Missile

The Perm display included what may be a surface-launched version of what Ukrainian military intelligence refers to as the S8000 Banderol cruise missile. The Banderol was previously understood to be an air-launched cruise missile associated with the Russian Kronstadt Orion/Inokhodets, which is a fixed-wing, so-called medium altitude, long-endurance (MALE) ISR drone powered by a piston engine. There is no ambiguity that this specimen is a powered cruise missile. This airframe, including the beaked nose section and distinct control surfaces, is consistent with the digital model of the S8000 Banderol released by Ukrainian military intelligence earlier this year.

The apparent ground-launched Banderol is notably equipped with two suspension lugs, which may reflect a production configuration that can be either launched from the ground—with the aid of a solid propellant rocket booster—or from the air. It is important to note that the Kronstadt Orion/Inokhodets ISR drone is operated by the Russian Army, not the Russian Air Force. The Russian Army also operates Russia’s Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones. According to Ukrainian military intelligence, the air-launched version of the Banderol can travel up to 500 km at a cruise speed of 500 km/h while equipped with a ~100 kg warhead. Supposing that this information is accurate, the air-launched version of the Banderol cruise missile would appear to offer broadly comparable performance to Russia’s recently unveiled (ground-launched) turbojet-powered Geran-3. While a ground-launched Banderol will have a lower nominal maximum range than its air-launched counterpart, it will compete with the Geran-3 for funding and missions against many of the targets attacked by the Russian Army across Ukraine, which typically take place a distance of less than 500 kilometers from the frontlines/international border.

An Uncrewed Surface Vessel And An ISR Drone To Forward-Launch Shorter-Range Strike Munitions

Other strike systems on display included an uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) equipped with two canister-launched munitions of unknown type and a fixed-wing ISR drone that was equipped with both an unknown cylindrical payload on its wing and what appears to be a multirotor drone. Nominally reusable aerial and/or naval platforms, whether crewed or uncrewed, can be used to forward-launch lower-cost short-range strike munitions, thereby moderating the number of more expensive longer-range strike munitions that the Russian military requires.

A Smaller Propeller-Driven Fixed-Wing Strike Drone And A Turbojet-Powered Version Thereof

Several propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones were part of the display. While these somewhat resemble the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya, these are, in fact, much smaller strike drone designs with important differences.

The above propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone design shares the cropped delta wing of the Iranian-origin Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya and its distinctive wing stabilizers, but is much smaller and features a different piston engine design.

The above images reveal the existence of what may be a turbojet-powered version of the aforementioned propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone design, one that is also of similar appearance to the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya but is much smaller. The turbojet engine in question is likely to be a commercially sourced design that is typically used on hobby aircraft. A small and short-range but quite fast turbojet-powered strike munition like this can evade Ukrainian multirotor and fixed-wing interceptor drones to attack battlefield targets.

Uncertainties notwithstanding, Russia recently unveiled several new and quite interesting strike munitions designs at the exhibition in Perm. As with so many aspects of Russian military industrial activity since February 2022, any serious analysis must ask whether the underlying research and development efforts are individually and collectively too little, too late.

According to Ukrainian military intelligence, Russia’s Geran-3, which is a Russian turbojet-powered version/derivative of the ordinarily propeller-driven Iranian-origin Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drone, can be equipped with a nose-mounted electro-optical sensor/camera in a configuration that also features a line-of-sight radio frequency datalink so as to allow real-time human monitoring, if not real-time human control. According to Ukrainian sources, propeller-driven Russian-built Ъ-series Geran-2 airframes exist in this configuration. The turbojet-powered Geran-3 is so far associated with У-series airframes. A recent moderate definition video recorded in Ukraine that captures what appears to be a Geran-3 in flight, notably does not offer any indication of the presence of a nose-mounted camera/sensor in the Ъ-series Geran-2 configuration for which imagery is available. The video definition is inadequate to discern the presence of an antenna on either the port/left or the starboard/right wing stabilizer of the turbojet-powered Geran-3.

As the following images of what Ukrainian sources characterize as a Ъ-series Geran-2 indicate, Russia appears to be using a very rudimentary commercial-off-the-shelf electro-optical sensor. This is not a military-grade electro-optical system of the likes found on most reusable ISR drones. Then again, both the Geran-2 and Geran-3 are employed as single-use uncrewed aircraft-turned-strike munitions for which a high-end electro-optical sensor is an irrational and unaffordable luxury.

The Ukrainian source of the above images claims that the Geran-2 airframe in question was downed some 130 kilometers from the frontlines. Not only would the Geran-2 airframe in question require a radio frequency datalink to facilitate real-time human supervision, if not real-time human control, but an aerial repeater/radio relay would have been used, given the claimed distance from the frontline, which far exceeds the line-of-sight range of a ground-based radio antenna in Russian-controlled territory. That said, it is possible that sensor-equipped Geran-3 airframes are intended for use against fairly proximate targets, such as the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, with the significantly higher cruise and maximum speed being intended to increase the probability of penetrating Ukrainian air defences. A target in the Dnipro metropolitan area would remain within the maximum practical coverage of an aerial radio relay/repeater.

It remains to be seen whether turbojet-powered Geran-3 aiframes used against such fairly proximate targets will be used in a higher-payload, reduced-range configuration. The propeller-driven Geran-2 airframes built at the Alabuga, Tatarstan production line can be equipped with either a 50-kilogram or a 90-kilogram warhead, with the latter configuration coming with a significant reduction in maximum range. The propeller-driven Garpiya aiframes built at the Izhevsk, Udmurtia production line have been equipped with either one or two 50-kilogram warheads. It is possible that a Geran-3 used to attack fairly proximate targets, such as those in the Dnipro metropolitan, area will be equipped with a heavier warhead.

While the turbojet-powered Geran-3 may exist in a configuration that is equipped with a nose-mounted electro-optical, it bears emphasis that the maximum range of around 1000 kilometers claimed by Ukrainian military intelligence suggests a design with a range-payload optimization that is not primarily intended for use against targets located closer to the frontlines/international border. Unless Russia employs multiple aerial radio relays/repeaters en route, which is a decidedly haphazard approach given the effectiveness of Ukrainian air defences and electronic warfare capabilities, the human-in-the-loop mode of operation will only be practical over, at most, a maximum range of 200-300 kilometers. Beyond such distances, Russia will either have to use a satellite communication (SATCOM), perhaps the Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) SATCOM service, or use the cellular data service offered by Ukraine’s mobile phone network.

According to its manufacturer, the JT80 turbojet generates a maximum thrust of 80 kilograms, which is to say around 785 newtons or 0.785 kilonewtons (kN). The JT80 is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) turbojet engine. Small and fairly low-thrust turbojet engines such as the JT80 were—until recently—typically used on hobby aircraft and, at most, in target drones used to support military training activities. Until recently, there were very few military applications for small turbojet engines, which helps explain the commercial trade in such propulsion systems and the general absence of regulations and regulatory enforcement thus far. The JT80 falls on the higher thrust end of the COTS turbojet engine spectrum—there are many even smaller/lower thrust COTS turbojet engines available for purchase with few regulations worldwide. For context, (subsonic) anti-ship cruise missiles, which until recently constituted some of the smallest missiles equipped with air-breathing engines, are typically equipped with a turbojet generating 2.5-3.5 kN (i.e., 2500-3500 newtons).

While unit costs are ultimately determined by the number of turbojet engines included in an order, such a turbojet engine is typically sold on the commercial market at a unit price of US$15,000-$20,000. While the JT80 is a COTS design, it is designed to be reusable and is not a true bare-bones, no-frills turbojet engine designed to the lowest possible price point and, importantly, for one-time use. Stated differently, lower-cost turbojet engines of comparable thrust are possible. Russia’s gas turbine industry, however, appears to be incapable of quickly developing new turbojet designs and, more generally, appears to be similarly incapable of greatly expanding production output despite over three years of wartime industrial mobilization. It remains to be seen whether the JT80 is, in fact, being produced within Russia, possibly with some China-sourced components. Even if there is a licensed production agreement in place or supposing that Russia has independently reverse-engineered the Chinese JT80, the fact remains that the Geran-3 does not feature a Russian-designed turbojet engine, a dynamic that is a damning indictment of the state of Russia’s capacity to produce the many types of military equipment it needs for use in the Russia-Ukraine War and beyond.

It is worth noting that the JT80 is a fairly low-performance engine for use with the Geran-3 and the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya cropped delta wing airframe more generally. The maximum thrust of 785 newtons (0.785 kN) explains its fairly unimpressive reported top speed of around 300 kilometers per hour—the 370 kilometers per hour figure also offered by Ukrainian military intelligence may refer to the Geran-3’s top speed in a terminal dive toward the intended target. It is worth noting that the Chinese company Telefly offers a diverse array of turbojet engines. With the JT80’s name denoting 80 kilograms of thrust, Telefly also offers a JT40, JT100 and JT135, as well as turbojets generating 200 (~1960 newtons) and 400 kilograms (~3900 newtons) thrust. Supposing that Russia has secured a steady supply of JT80 turbojet engines, a dynamic that will likely result in burdensome sanctions on the part of European countries and perhaps the United States against the Chinese company, Russia may be able to not only asustain a sizable production run for the Geran-3 but also use commercially-sourced Chinese engine turbojet engines designs, if not commercially-sourced Chinese-built turbojet engines, in other strike munitions. It is worth noting that the S8000 Banderol, a fairly new Russian air-launched cruise missile, is reportedly equipped with a different Chinese turbojet engine of comparable performance, the Swiwin SW800Pro. Given uncertainties as to whether Russia is importing fully-assembled Chinese-built turbojet engines, it remains to be seen whether Russia is rather haphazardly employing whatever commercially-sourced turbojet engine is available on the Geran-3 or if the JT80 turbojet is the propulsion system used on all Geran-3 specimens.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account. This post greatly expands on several of my recent posts including the following:

The Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya catapult-type launchers at Donetsk Airport, which is now located some 36 kilometers from the frontlines, may be associated with the still fairly new 7th Separate Regiment of Russia's Unmanned Systems Troops. This regiment operates a mix of fixed-wing ISR drones (Orlan-10, Orlan-30, ZALA, etc.), Lancet family fixed-wing loitering strike drones (both the larger and longer-range Izdeliye-51 and the much smaller Izdeliye-52), as well as both the Geran-2 and Garpiya fixed-wing strike drones. This peculiar array of fixed-wing drones of highly variant maximum range-payload is likely intended to undertake strikes against fairly proximate battlefield targets located at a distance of up to 50 or so kilometers from the frontlines/international border.

There exists a steadily growing library of documented attacks involving Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones against stationary battlefield targets. Such footage is notably not limited to the actively contested Pokrovsk sector, which is near Donetsk city and its nearby airport. There are multiple documented cases of Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones being used to attack fairly proximate battlefield targets in the Sumy sector. It is important to note that the Geran-2 is available in a reduced-range configuration that is equipped with a 90-kilogram warhead, which is comparable in terms of weight to the warhead found on the 227 mm GMLRS artillery rockets used with the American tracked M270 MLRS and wheeled M142 HIMARS systems. The Garpiya, which is built at a different production line in Izhevsk, Udmurtia, than the Geran-2, which is built at Alabuga, Tatarstan, has recently been seen in a reduced range configuration that is equipped with two 50-kilogram warheads.

While these heavier warhead configurations are also being used by Russian Army Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya launch units to attack targets (within range) across Ukraine, Russia may be concurrently using some of its Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones to serve as lower-cost—but also lower penetration rate and longer time-to-target—surrogates for medium 227 mm diameter and large 300 mm diameter caliber guided artillery rockets/missiles such the 300 mm Tornado-S, which do not appear to be available in the required numbers despite over three years of wartime industrial mobilization. It is important to note that Russia is now employing versions of the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya that are equipped with an onboard sensor/camera as well as a modem/radio frequency datalink to facilitate (line-of-sight) human-in-the-loop supervision, if not control, over these strike drones. While such an operating concept is not practical for use in attacks against targets located deep inside Ukrainian-controlled territory in the absence of readily available low-latency and high-bandwidth beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications, it is practical for use against fairly proximate battlefield targets located within 50 or so kilometers of the frontlines/international border, not least at a time when aerial radio relays/repeaters are in widespread use to extend the maximum practical range of armed multirotor drones, fixed-wing ISR drones, and fixed-wing loitering strike drones like the Lancet family.

According to a Ukrainian media report from May 2025, which claims to draw upon leaked Russian documents, the 7th Separate Regiment of Russia's Unmanned Systems Troops has a reported target strength of around 1350 personnel and is reportedly composed of one strike drone battalion and three reconnaissance drone battalions. The regiment is reported to have a target force structure of 102 drone crews, of which 41 will be strike drone crews and 61 will be reconnaissance drone crews. According to the Ukrainian media report, the total of 102 drone crews which are to constitute the 7th Separate Regiment is composed of 61 crews operating various ISR drones, 33 crews operating Lancet family loitering strike drones, six crews operating Kub series loitering strike drones, and, not least, two crews operating the far larger, heavier, and longer-ranged Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones. Two large catapult-type launchers compatible with the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya have notably been seen at Donetsk airport (image 1).

While the 7th Separate Regiment of Russia's Unmanned Systems Troops may be operating from Donetsk Airport, it is important to note that there are now several enterprising Russian drone units. The most notable examples include Russia's Rubicon Center, which is a known operator of Lancet family loitering strike drones and appears to now also be involved with uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) alongside its core capability set, which concerns the employment of armed "FPV" multirotor drones. There is also the enterprising Bars-Sarmat unit, among others. It is unclear whether these units will also begin to operate Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones to attack fairly proximate battlefield targets with either a 50-kilogram or 90-kilogram warhead that dwarfs the warheads installed on all their other munitions.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR/HUR) has released information about Russia's Geran-3, which appears to be a distinctly Russian turbojet-powered version/derivative of the underlying propeller-driven Iranian-origin Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drone design. The Russian-built versions/derivatives of the Shahed-136 are the Geran-2 from the Alabuga, Tatarstan production line and the Garpiya from the Izhevsk, Udmurtia production line. According to GUR/HUR, the Russian-built Geran-3 is equipped with a Chinese JT80 turbojet engine (i.e., a maximum thrust of ~785 newtons, or 80 kg) and can fly at a speed of 300-370 km/h over a maximum range of 1000 kilometers.

Recent images of debris of what is said to have been a Geran-3 specimen indicate the use of a 50-kilogram warhead. It is important to note that the underlying propeller-driven Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya can be equipped with a 90-kilogram warhead in a reduced-range configuration. It is not known whether the turbojet-powered Geran-3 can also be equipped with a 90-kilogram warhead in a reduced-range configuration.

The Geran-3 appears to use a minimally modified Russian-built Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya airframe. The Iranian turbojet-powered Shahed-238, which was unveiled in late 2023 and may not have been deployed by Iran in significant numbers, features a distinctive air inlet not found on the Russian Geran-3, does not have an exposed turbojet engine like the Russian Geran-3, and has revised control surface actuators unlike the Russian Geran-3. In September 2024, Iran unveiled the not unproblematically named "Shahed-136 jet." This distinct design, which was used in the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, introduced a distinct wing stabilizer design not used on any of the known propeller-driven versions of the underlying Iranian cropped delta wing strike drone design. The Russian Geran-3 retains the same wing stabilizer design as the original propeller-driven Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya.

Notably, the Geran-3 model unveiled by Ukrainian military intelligence appears to be much the same as the "winter specimen" that was first publicized in an undated (winter-time) video released in June 2025. The "winter specimen" featured an antenna on the port/left wing stabilizer, a feature that does not appear on the diagram of the Geran-3 provided by Ukrainian military intelligence. GUR/HUR does, however, claim that Geran-3 is used/can be used with a nose-mounted sensor/camera. The Geran-3 will require a radio frequency datalink to make use of the sensor/camera, absent the presence of fairly expensive components to facilitate onboard automated target detection, selection, and engagement.

While Ukraine's air defence and electronic warfare capabilities have evolved considerably over the past two years and the country is increasingly well-positioned to counter Russian Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones and other propeller-driven strike drones and armed/unarmed decoy drones more generally, the Geran-3, which GUR/HUR's specifications indicate to be fairly slow and underpowered as turbojet-powered munitions go, is likely to be far too fast to be practically intercepted by Ukraine's new crop of fixed- and rotary-wing interceptors drones.

The following text and accompanying video were posted on my X/Twitter account on 14 September 2025:

This video appears to show a Russian turbojet-powered version/derivative of the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drone, which may have the designation Geran-3. While I will wait for a better video/image and/or comments from Ukrainian officials, this may not be the turbojet-powered "winter specimen" that can be seen in a video released over the summer (see link). Iran has unveiled two turbojet-powered versions/derivatives of the Shahed-136: the Shahed-238—which may not have been deployed—and a substantially modified design called the "Shahed-136 jet," which was used in the June 2025 Iran-Israel War. I am inclined to think that we are dealing with one or more distinctly Russian (turbojet-powered) branches of the originally Iranian evolutionary tree.

The following text and accompanying video were posted on my X/Twitter account on 16 September 2025:

Better images through which to compare the new Russian turbojet-powered Geran-3 with the Iranian turbojet-powered Shahed-238 and "Shahed-136 jet," as well as the original propeller-driven Shahed-136 (and the Russian-built Geran-2 and Garpiya).

This may be a turbojet-powered Garpiya, which is built by IEMZ Kupol in Izhevsk, Udmurtia and is reported to rely on Chinese-built components, whereas the Geran-2 is built at the original Russian production line in Alabuga, Tatarstan.

Following further review, I can now say that the downed Geran-3 specimen is consistent with the propeller-driven specimens seen in the documentary covering the Alabuga factory that was released back in July 2025 (as well as the Geran-2 and Garpiya specimens paraded in May 2025).

An image from the May 2025 Moscow parade for reference (an Alabuga-built Geran-2 on the left and an Izhevsk-built Garpiya on the right)

The digital model posted on the Ukrainian military intelligence website indicates a different air intake geometry than that found on the Iranian Shahed-238 (as does the image of the downed specimen—see image 4). Image 3 features a Shahed-238.

I will note that this image, which was released by Ukrainian military intelligence, needs some explaining. Ukraine claims that the turbojet-powered Geran-3 is equipped with a 12-element CRPA GNSS antenna array, which is designed to be more resilient to Ukrainian GNSS jamming and spoofing efforts than preceding 8 and 4-element CRPA GNSS arrays (16-element CRPA GNSS arrays are also in use). This specimen appears to have crash-landed for one reason or another. Ukraine may have had a lucky break in accessing what appears to be a more or less intact specimen. Russia may regret its selected warhead fusing and the possible absence of an effective anti-tamper mechanism.

It is worth noting that in early 2025, Ukrainian media attributed to Ukrainian military intelligence the claim that Russia was working on a (Russian) turbojet-powered Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya derivative that would be equipped with a much more powerful turbojet engine and a much greater top speed—as well as what I still consider to be an implausible maximum range of 2500 kilometers—than the turbojet-powered Geran-3 that Ukrainian military intelligence disclosed today. There may be more than one Russian turbojet-powered Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya derivative in existence—the other may be a faster but shorter-range design.

Source: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/18/7498968/index.amp

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

The Ukrainian Air Force's latest daily press release notably reports Russia's use of ten artillery rockets—the press release tentatively characterizes these as 300 mm diameter rockets, presumably guided, associated with the Tornado-S system—to target Zaporizhzhia. This appears to be the first (tentative) mention of the Tornado-S in the Ukrainian Air Force's daily press releases since 2022.

The 300 mm diameter guided rockets/missiles used with the Tornado-S are significantly larger, heavier, and heavier analogues to the American 227 mm diameter GMLRS guided rockets used with the tracked M270 MLRS and wheeled M142 HIMARS launchers. While Russia developed 300 mm diameter guided rockets/missiles before February 2022, Russia's inventory and production capacity over the course of the war appear to have been and remain very limited.

One of the more striking aspects of Russia's wartime industrial mobilization is the apparent non-prioritization of guided artillery rockets to support Russian ground forces. The Russian Army operates the Iskander-M ballistic missile. Unlike the OTR-21 Tochka short-range ballistic missiles that it directly replaced, the Iskander-M is not optimized to offer long-range, high penetration, and short time-to-target fire support to division and corps-sized ground combat units. The 300 mm guided rockets/missiles used with the Tornado-S system are far better suited for that role, but the apparent limited availability of such munitions and similar has resulted in the repeated use of Iskander ballistic missiles to attack fairly minor targets located within 50-100 kilometers of the frontlines/international border.

Should Russia come to have a large number of 300 mm guided rockets/missiles, which have a maximum range of over 100 kilometers, or similar at its disposal, it will be able to regularly attack high-value targets that are beyond the maximum practical range of its UMPK and UMPB guided glide bombs (for as long as the Russian Air Force does not dare to attempt operating in the airspace behind the frontlines/international border). While Russia can use its Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones to attack targets located further from the frontlines/international border, these have a fairly limited destructive radius/destructive effects, have a low penetration rate, and a high time to target. As a result, Russia is forced to use its Iskander-M ballistic missiles or air/sea/ground-launched land-attack cruise missiles—all of which remain fairly scarce and, as such, quite precious despite over three years of wartime industrial mobilization—to attack such targets. In practice, this has resulted in a situation in which an incredibly large number of potential targets located within 100-150 kilometers of the frontlines/international border have been essentially untouched throughout the Russia-Ukraine War. It remains to be seen whether the possible use of ten 300 mm artillery rockets/missiles to target Zaporizhzhia is a sign of things to come.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

This and other attacks involving Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya propeller-driven strike drones against targets near the frontlines/international border should serve as a reminder that these fairly inexpensive strike munitions are unlikely to go away anytime soon. Yes, a new generation of fairly inexpensive air defence systems, including what amount to propeller-driven remotely piloted surface-to-air missile analogues of both fixed-wing and rotary-wing configuration, will, all else being equal, degrade the effectiveness of Russia's propeller-driven strike drone designs.

All else is not, however, equal—ongoing efforts toward expanding production capacity facilitate the expansion of the maximum size of Russian strike drone salvos, which are increasingly bolstered with similarly large salvos of both armed and unarmed decoy drones. This stresses Ukraine's air defence capabilities. Moreover, the new generation of fairly inexpensive Ukrainian air defence systems optimized for use against fairly slow and essentially non-responsive/non-maneuvering aerial targets like the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya, and the rest of Ukraine's air defence systems more generally, are best suited for use in rear areas and in contexts in which successive "lines" of air defences can be used to thin out inbound groups of propeller-driven strike drones. This is not possible in sectors, including the Kharkiv metropolitan area, that are located close to the frontlines/international border. Relatedly, Russia can employ Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones against battlefield targets located within several dozen kilometers from the frontline/international border. This is not a hypothetical—there is a steadily growing library of documented attacks involving Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones against stationary battlefield targets.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

The first video, which was recorded earlier today, shows a Russian Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone undertaking a terminal dive and impacting what I understand to be a university building near central Kharkiv. The building is located some 35 kilometers from the international border/frontline. The first video highlights one of the limitations of the Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya: it is equipped with a warhead that is fused to detonate upon impact. In many situations, it is preferable to have the warhead detonate after penetrating a structure. The second video shows the aftermath of this incident. Note how the damage is, for the most part, restricted to the upper level of this fairly robust brick-built building. Note also the presence of intact glass windows on the two lower floors. The third video offers a glimpse of some of the internal damage.

Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones are equipped with a 50-kilogram class warhead in their baseline configuration or a 90-kilogram class warhead in a reduced-range configuration that is better suited to the specific military-geographical context of the Russia-Ukraine War. The Russian-built Garpiya, which is built at a different production line than the Russian-built Geran-2 and is a derivative of the underlying Iranian Shahed-136 design, has recently been seen in a configuration featuring two 50-kilogram warheads. All else being equal, a larger and heavier warhead will increase the destructive radius and destructive effects of a munition, but fusing also matters, as well as weaponeering more generally. Most of the munitions used by both sides in the Russia-Ukraine War feature fairly primitive fusing, a dynamic that typically reduces the realized destructive effects even when an accurate hit is registered on the intended target.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

Russia's use of Iskander-M ballistic missile launchers garrisoned in Kaliningrad to undertake simulated "electronic launches" (see the attached videos) as part of the Zapad-2025 bilateral military exercise with Belarus should serve as a reminder that Russia has so far forgone launching Iskander-M ballistic missiles against Ukraine from launch positions in Kaliningrad despite the advantageous launch geometry the Russian exclave offers. While the Iskander-M is limited in terms of maximum range, it can be used to target parts of western Ukraine from Kaliningrad. A ballistic missile with a maximum range of around 700 kilometers is required to reach Kyiv.

Ukraine is reliant on sectored ballistic missile defence systems—systems that have fire control/engagement radars that are restricted to a 120° field of view— in the form of the American Patriot system and, to a lesser degree (when faced with a simultaneous multi-axis ballistic missile attack), the French-Italian SAMP/T system. Given the limited maximum range of the Iskander-M, Russia has been unable to take full advantage of what its geography offers in terms of potential launch geometries against Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine that are home to a high concentration of potential high-value targets. The 9-А-7660 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile can somewhat compensate for the limited launch geometries possible with the existing versions of the Iskander-M, but appears to have its own limitations and is, in any event, of limited utility given the small numbers of serviceable MiG-31K launch platforms.

While the Russian military could have simply used a UMPK guided glide bomb or a Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone to attack this gas/petrol station, armed “FPV” multirotor drones and armed “FPV” fixed-wing drones are available in incomparably greater numbers and cost a small fraction of the aforementioned larger and heavier strike munitions. While armed “FPV” multirotor drones have a much smaller destructive radius, these—particularly those of the fiber optic communication uplink/downlink variety—can be used to undertake the highly surgical micro-level targeting of specific objects, including individual fuel pumps and fuel storage tanks. Given the limited destructive radius of uncrewed aircraft-turned-munitions that are restricted to carrying an explosive payload that weighs just several kilograms, multiple armed “FPV” multirotor drones must be used to render a gas/petrol station wholly unusable. Note the non-targeted above-ground fuel tank—the white cylinder with the red horizontal stripe—in the background of the second image.

For more on the targeting of gas/fuel stations with armed “FPV” multirotor drones, consider reading some of my recent posts (see below). While documented cases of armed “FPV” multirotor drones being used to target gas/petrol stations and local energy storage and distribution facilities more generally are currently limited to the specific context of the Russia-Ukraine War, there is no reason to assume that such attacks will not be seen elsewhere in the world given the fast diffusion of an area of military technology that is heavily reliant on inexpensive and increasingly commoditized commercial-off-the-shelf components.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

While the Ukrainian Air Force's daily disclosures of the number of Russian strike munition launches and the number of (claimed) Ukrainian interceptions thereof are very useful for observers of the Russia-Ukraine War, it is important to recognize that these figures do not disaggregate the launches and claimed interception of (seemingly) primarily unarmed decoy drones, such as the Russian Gerbera, from the likes of Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones. Starting around the autumn of 2024, Russia has been employing decoy drones such as the Gebera with increasing regularity and in ever-increasing numbers. It is important to note that the Gebera can, at most, only be equipped with a very small and rather token 1-3 kilogram-class warhead—Russia's Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones are regularly equipped with either 50-kilogram or 90-kilogram class warheads. We are, as such, dealing with very different types of uncrewed fixed-wing aircraft. While Ukrainian officials have, over time, offered figures for the number of decoy drones that Russia has used and the percentage of "Shahed type strike drones and various types of imitator/simulator drones" that are, infact, (seemingly) primarily unarmed decoy drones, we can now use the Ukrainian Air Force's own disclosures to discern that some 32% of the claimed "Shahed type drones" that Ukraine claims to have intercepted over the course of August 2025—and an unknown percentage of claimed launches thereof—appear to have been interceptions of Russian decoy drones such as the Gerbera, not Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones that typically carry significantly larger and far more consequential/non-token warheads.

If you compile the Ukrainian Air Force's daily press releases made over the course of August 2025—which are the figures that are (often uncritically) repeated by journalists, commentators, analysts, and politicans worldwide—Russia is said to have launched a total of 4120 "strike drones of the Shahed type and various types of drone simulators"—i.e., decoy drones—of which 3436—some 83.4%—are said to have been successfuly intercepted or neutralized through electronic warfare by the Ukrainian military. These figures do not, of course, disaggregate (seemingly) primarily unarmed decoy drones from armed Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones.

At the start of September 2025, the Ukrainian Air Force released a monthly summary of its accomplishments in the areas of air defence and ballistic missile defence for August 2025. According to this monthly summary, the Ukrainian Air Force claims that Ukraine only intercepted 2129 Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones, which is to say that most—if not all—of the 1307 other intercepted drones—some 31.72%—were (seemingly) primarily unarmed decoy drones such as the Gerbera.

While the Ukrainian Air Force's longstanding practice of issuing daily press releases necessarily entails compromised data collection efforts—it takes time to investigate all interception claims, debris, and so forth—the monthly summary for August 2025 indicates that the Ukrainian Air Force can, with time, disaggregate the number of (seemingly) primarily unarmed decoy drones that it intercepts from the number of armed strike drones that it intercepts. Stated differently, journalists, commentators, analysts, and politicians are best off waiting for better/more refined data and are well advised to consume the Ukrainian Air Force's daily press releases with a lot of caution. While "Russia launches 600 drones against Ukraine today" is a great headline, we appear to be dealing with a situation in which some 200/600 of said "drones" are likely to be (seemingly) primarily unarmed decoy drones such as the Gerbera.

Serious analysis of the implications of the Russia-Ukraine War for other countries requires better data, a more discerning eye and greater circumspection toward decidedly non-neutral and selectively disclosed available data, and sound analytical frameworks more generally. Simply stated, many of the claimed "lessons" of this war are unlikely to be generalizable to other countries and contexts. Much has been made of Ukraine's apparent and claimed success in largely neutralizing the Russian propeller-driven strike drone threat. If we take the Ukrainian Air Force's daily press releases at face value, Ukraine successfully intercepted or neutralized through electronic warfare some 83.40% of Russian strike drones *and* decoy drones over the course of August 2025. When it comes to the use of electronic warfare to neutralize Russian strike drones and/or decoy drones, it is important to recognize that there is a lot of variance in the types of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)—GPS and its non-American analogues—antenna arrays installed on not just Russia's strike drones but also its decoy drones.

It is possible, even likely (given available images and videos of debris and downed/crashed specimens), that most of Russia's Gerbera decoy drones are equipped with less expensive and more readily available GNSS antenna arrays that are less resilient to the effects of Ukrainian electronic warfare systems (i.e., GNSS jamming and spoofing). There are many ways to employ aerial decoys, and not all approaches require the decoy drone to accurately fly along a specific preprogrammed flight path. In some cases, it may suffice to simply occupy enemy air defences and present an additional target on the enemy's sensor displays. For some roles, however, Russia needs a Gerbera decoy drone to not only penetrate Ukrainian airspace but also accurately navigate toward a distant target. Russia may, for example, want to have several Gerbera decoy drones to occupy Ukrainian air defences around Kyiv, a sector that is likely to not only be home to a high concentration of air defence systems but also a high concentration of electronic warfare systems. As a result, some—but not all—Gerbera decoy drones require a higher-end GNSS antenna array.

We also need to consider the possibility that Ukrainian air defences may decide not the intercept a positively identified Gerbera decoy drone or at least not prioritize its interception, a dynamic which will also affect the interception rate. With most Gerbera decoy drones (seemingly) being employed in an unarmed state, these decoy drones, which are made of foam and plywood, will eventually run out of fuel and crash into the ground as a functionally inert projectile that will neither detonate upon impact nor combust. While it is possible to characterize such Gerbera drones as specimens which "fail" their assigned mission, it is also possible to view such Gerbera drones as low-cost decoy drones that fulfilled their intended purpose. In other words, observers may be misinterpreting the significance of the Ukrainian Air Force's claimed interception and neutralization figures even if these figures are, in fact, accurate, albeit not disaggregated. It is worth noting that unfolding measure-countermeasure dynamics incentivize Russia to arm its Gebera decoy drones whenever possible—which is to say whenever it is possible to trade range for greater payload in a given mission—so that Ukrainian air defences are induced to undertake interception attempts.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

An unknown percentage of Russia's propeller-driven Gerbera decoy drones are employed in an armed configuration that entails the installation of a very modest—almost token—warhead. The Gerbera's design is very much limited in terms of range-payload and is, in practice, limited to carrying a 1-3 kilogram-class warhead when employed in a necessarily reduced range configuration. Russia's Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones, in contrast, are typically equipped with either a 50-kilogram or 90-kilogram-class warhead, the latter being the reduced-range configuration that trades range for payload.

Given how far Gerbera decoy drones have been observed from the international border/frontlines, only a subset of Russia's Gerbera decoy drones appear to be employed in an armed configuration. Measure-countermeasure dynamics and the nature of Gerbera's design incentivize Russia to employ this propeller-driven decoy drone design in both armed and unarmed configurations. Unfortunately for observers of the Russia-Ukraine War, the Ukrainian Air Force's daily disclosures do not disaggregate/distinguish launches and claimed interceptions of Gerbera decoy drones from launches and claimed interceptions of Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones. Observers currently have no publicly available estimate of the percentage of Gerbera decoy drones that are employed in an armed configuration, irrespective of the very limited destructive effects and destructive radius of such a small and light warhead. It is important to note that the installation of a warhead is not the only source of variance in Russia's employment of the Gerbera decoy drone design. Russia is known to employ the Gerbera in at least one configuration in which the small decoy drone is equipped with an electro-optical sensor and a datalink. It is also possible, even likely, that different "versions" of the Gerbera are equipped with different CRPA GNSS antenna arrays of varying cost and EW resilience so as to serve very different functions in Russian strike planning.

Background:

Images and a video of two different downed Russian propeller-driven Gerbera decoy drones—the images are notably from a Gerbera that crashed in Poland. The Gebera decoy drone is made of plywood and foam—refer to the images—and appears to be primarily employed in an unarmed configuration. While it can serve in the role of an imperfect visual and acoustic decoy of the significantly larger and much heavier Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drone, the Gerbera's design is very much limited in terms of range-payload and is, in practice, limited to carrying a very modest—almost token—warhead in the 1-3 kilogram class when employed in a necessarily reduced range configuration. Russia's Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya strike drones, in contrast, are typically equipped with either a 50-kilogram or 90-kilogram-class warhead, the latter being the reduced-range configuration that trades range for payload. When employed in the unarmed configuration and once out of fuel, the Gebera is a functionally inert projectile that will not detonate or combust upon impact with the ground, a dynamic that can be seen in these images and the video in particular. It is important to note that measure-countermeasure dynamics now incentivize Russia to arm the Gebera when possible, no matter how limited the destructive effects/radius of such a small and light warhead. I elaborated on this dynamic in a recent post.