Russia has intensified its drone attacks on Ukraine, launching massive salvoes that are saturating the country’s air defenses. The average wave size has risen from 100 munitions in 2022 to nearly 300 in 2025, while intervals between major strikes have compressed from a month to as few as two days.
The salvo campaign now relies heavily on Shahed swarms to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses. Russia is using this attritional punishment strategy, where victory is achieved through volume, persistence, and psychological strain. To counter this, Ukraine needs layered, cost-efficient defenses, including rapidly fielding high-energy lasers and HPMs, expanding cross-domain early-warning networks, diversifying low-cost interceptors and rapid-fire guns, and fusing civil-military tracking capabilities.
The shift in operational tempo is a deliberate signal to Ukraine and its backers that Russia is prepared to escalate, overwhelm, and exhaust the country. The normalization of large-scale salvo launches embodies a deeper strategic logic in Russia’s wartime conduct, where the capacity to outlast adversaries through sustained pressure is a key advantage.
Ukraine must match persistence with innovation by deploying low-cost, high-energy laser systems capable of intercepting drone swarms before they can overwhelm conventional defenses. The country also needs to pursue a multilayered defense architecture, including cross-domain early-warning sensors, diversified interceptor portfolios, and real-time tracking platforms.
By contesting the narrative and turning Russia’s salvo strategy from an overwhelming tide into a manageable fight, Ukraine can regain the strategic initiative in the skies. This requires combining directed-energy systems, layered sensors, diverse interceptors, resilient infrastructure, and real-time tracking to outmaneuver Russian drones and missiles.
Source: https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-salvo-war