President Volodomyr Zelensky warned Moscow was firing almost ten times as many drones as it did last fall, and Russia is launching waves of long-range drone strikes on Ukrainian cities almost continuously as its soldiers advance in the east.
In an effort to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses, Russia has started firing decoy drones without warheads in addition to significantly increasing the number of hits. According to Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air defenses, decoy drones use a “3D-printed ball wrapped in foil” to mimic the warhead of an Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone.
Ukraine’s air defenses may shoot down decoy drones rather than ones with deadly warheads because these less expensive drones confuse them. According to Ihnat, up to half of all Russian drones fired at Ukraine are now decoy drones.
