New Forms of Mass and Attrition
A Case Study of Russian Employment of Shahed Drones in Ukraine
Since the 2022 Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia-affiliated military forces have been employing the Shahed 136 loitering munition (and the less capable 131 variant) to attack Ukrainian targets. Ukrainian forces have achieved a high shoot-down rate of these munitions due to their relatively slow speed and the distinct audible noise they emit during flight. Analysis of a compiled dataset1 authored by Petro Ivaniuk and verified by the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows a cumulative shoot-down rate of Shaheds from September 2022 through September 2024 of 85.6%.
While this shoot-down rate is high, the Russians have probably assessed that the attritional math works out in their favor and have thus continued to employ the Shahed. In many intercepts, Shahed munitions may cost fractions of the air defense systems and munitions used to defeat them. Production cost estimates of the Shahed 136 range from $20,000 to $50,000, but the Russians may have paid Iran $193,000 per system. Even at this inflated cost, the trade of a Shahed against a single Patriot missile valued north of $1 million represents a cost-exchange ratio in favor of the Russians. Other options, including air-to-air shoot-down with the R-73 also disproportionately favor the Shahed from a cost perspective. More cost-efficient tactics exist, including air-to-air kills from helicopters armed with machine guns and mobile air defense units. However,the data from recent months suggests that Ukrainian air defenses are struggling to keep pace with an increase in volume of Shahed attacks regardless of cost.
“…Russians have probably assessed that the attritional math works out in their favor…”
Cost exchange ratios may continue to evolve unfavorably for Ukraine. By early 2024, Russian domestic production of the Geran-2 (the Russian domestic version of the Shahed) had reached 4,500 units, including a dummy version called the Gerbera. With no kinetic payload, the dummy version appears explicitly designed to further drain the Ukrainian arsenal of air and missile defense resources at a fraction of the cost to Russia.
An exploration of the data suggests that the Russians have successfully increased the mass of individual Shahed strikes since the beginning of the conflict, consequently increasing the rates at which they defeat Ukrainian air defenses.
This plot depicts the swarm size of individual attacks composed of Shaheds since September 20222. The data exhibits an upward trend in swarm sizes over time, with an especially notable increase in recent months.3 The examination of cumulative monthly munition totals below also shows an absolute increase in total Shaheds employed, not just in individual swarm sizes.
We can also see that in October 2024, Ukrainian air defenses intercepted more Shaheds than in any other month in the conflict, but with the most unfavorable defense ratio seen to date. Nearly half of the Shaheds launched at Ukraine in October evaded the country’s air defenses.
The figure below depicts the monthly shoot-down rate of Shaheds through October 2024, further confirming the sharp decline in intercept rate as Russian attack sizes have grown. These observations suggest that Ukraine's air defense capabilities have faltered as Russian swarm mass has increased. Whether this decrease in air defense performance owes to a lack of capacity to cope with large swarms or to a general paucity of resources remains to be seen.
The trend of increasing monthly Shaheds launches shown in the figures above was statistically significant in several models.4 The models generally predict a continued increase in Shahed attacks in the coming months. Questions persist about whether Russian forces can sustain this upward trend. How much additional production capacity is available, and when will the trend stop? Will there be a plateau at 2000 launches per month? Will launches increase beyond 3000 per month?
The reduction in shootdown success and escalation in Shahed launches suggest a change in the tempo and tactics of the war. Ukrainian reporting has noted the recent increase in mass and subsequent increase in the effectiveness of the attacks. Where Shaheds used to be accompanied by more exquisite cruise and ballistic missiles, Russian forces now appear to be relying largely on increased single-munition attack size. Whether Ukraine can innovate and break the trend through tactics, systems, or increased production remains uncertain. But for now, mass is dominating previously-used tactics and imposing damage and costs on Ukraine in a battle of attrition.
War Quants will closely monitor these indicators in the coming months.
The views and opinions expressed on War Quants are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Government, the Department of Defense, or any other agency or organization.
Data for this analysis was downloaded on November 20, 2024.
The data does not explicitly state what constitutes a single attack. Our team suspects that for larger swarms, the attacks are massed operationally from several different launch sites.
For monthly cumulative totals, November 2024 is not included as it would have been incomplete at the time the data was pulled and this article was published.
Models that confirmed an increasing trend included time series decomposition, several time series models, and linear models with polynomial terms. Attempts to fit the data to an exponential distribution via non-linear regression and linear regression on log transformed data did not show strong statistical evidence that the data is exponentially distributed.