When the air raid siren wails and the alert sounds on Oleksandr Matviienko’s cellphone, the Kyiv resident starts quickly scrolling through social media channels, trying to glean more information about what exactly is headed toward the capital.
If he sees talk of ballistic missiles or drones saturating the sky, he grabs his sleeping bag and mat positioned near the doorway, and heads to the nearby metro station to join a crowd prepared to spend hours waiting out the attack by sheltering underground.
“I understand that the threat is really huge now,” Matviienko said to CBC News in an interview by Zoom.
“You never know if it will hit your apartment or your neighbour or neighbourhood.”
Matviiienko is a defence journalist at the Counteroffensive Pro, a Kyiv-based newsletter focused on defence innovation.
He has experienced first-hand the fear and sleepless nights triggered by Russia’s record-breaking drone attacks, and he understands Ukraine’s challenges as it tries to intercept large volleys of modified drones that have been designed to fly faster and higher, as well as harder to disrupt.
Iranian design, Russian upgrades
In the fall of 2022, Russia began using Iranian-made Shahed drones, which crash into targets and explode on impact. The drones have a wingspan of more than two metres and make a loud buzzing noise that some compare to the sound of a moped.
While it was Iranian drones that initially terrorized Ukrainian cities, Russia has ramped up its own production of three variations, the Geran-1, Geran-2 and Geran-3.
While Russia hasn’t disclosed how many drones it produces in a month, a recent report by Zvezda, one of the country’s state broadcasters, purported to show a factory full of drones in Russia’s Tatarstan region. The report detailed the factory’s growing workforce, which is being supplemented by high school students getting on-the-job training.
Just as Ukraine has continued to develop its weaponry since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Russia’s drones have gone through several technological upgrades.
Ukraine says the drones can now be equipped with more than 90 kilograms of explosives and have been found with shrapnel munitions to cause damage to a wider area.
Russia is also launching the unmanned aerial vehicles in much larger volleys, in an effort to overwhelm Ukraine’s defence system. While Kyiv continues to shoot down the vast majority of them, the sheer size of the swarms means more drones get through the defence systems and hit targets.
“Now we are in the most challenging time,” said Matviienko.
“Previously, they launched like 300 to 400 drones on the whole country, and now they are concentrating on one or two cities.”
Record-breaking attack
In recent weeks, Kyiv has come under aerial attack several times.
On June 28, at least 28 people were killed and more than 100 injured when drones and missiles targeted the capital over a nine-hour period. One of the drones slammed into a high-rise apartment building, destroying several of the units.
Then, in the overnight hours between July 8 and July 9, Russia launched its largest barrage of drones yet, with 728 targeting Ukraine along with 13 missiles.
Yuriy Ignat, a spokesperson with Ukraine’s air force, compared the scenario to a high-speed chess game.
“One can imagine what happens when 741 drones and missiles simultaneously appear on the map of Ukraine,” said Ignat.
“During those moments, commanders make difficult decisions about what methods should be used to shoot them down.”
As part of its barrage of weaponry, Russia is also launching decoy drones, which are made up of similar components but don’t carry a warhead.
There are several types of decoys, including some that look very similar to the Iranian Shahed drones and the Russian-produced Geran models. This makes it difficult for Ukraine’s air force to spot the real ones, stretching its air defence systems even further.
More sophisticated navigation system
When Russia launches the drones, Ukraine uses radar to detect the incoming weapons and then deploys a variety of methods to try to intercept them, but upgrades on the drones have created several challenges.
One change is to paint them in a black coating that makes them physically more difficult to see at night, Ignat said.
Experts say the devices are now being equipped with a global navigation satellite system, which includes larger arrays of antennae and makes them more resistant to electronic jamming.
Ignat said the drones are flying higher — often at an altitude of two kilometres or higher — making it difficult for mobile defence teams to shoot them down with machine guns.
And they’re also flying faster.
Experts say the Geran-2 model can travel around 200 km/h. The latest Geran-3 drone, in which the piston engine has been replaced by jet power, can travel at more than 500 km/h.
While Ukraine is using F-16 fighter jets, helicopters and air defence missiles to try and take down the UAVs, Matviiienko says Ukraine needs a deluge of fast, relatively cheap interceptor drones that can fly at least 300 km/hour.
Currently, though, there are relatively few domestic producers making them, he added.
Funding for more production
In a meeting with journalists last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s mobile fire teams are now using interceptor drones more than machine guns.
He said four companies are currently making interceptor drones, with two of them “already very successful in this area.” Ukraine is prepared to ramp up production and has secured a financing agreement with Germany, he said.
Canada had also committed to lending its support, Zelenskyy added
Ukraine’s Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal reportedly told allies during a meeting earlier this week that Kyiv needed $6 billion US to plug its weapons production shortfall for this year, which includes the manufacturing of interceptor drones.
