Dr. Igor Anokhin and Spencer August Faragasso
Recorded drone strikes over the period March 1 through May 12, 2025 show Russia continued its near daily bombardment of Ukraine with Shahed 136 drones, causing immense destruction, despite ceasefires. Russia announced a limited one-month ceasefire, starting on March 18th, meant to exempt attacks of Ukrainian energy infrastructure, a common target. While the number of drones launched during this timeframe dropped, Ukraine still witnessed near-daily attacks. 2 Ukrainian officials have presented evidence that Russia disregarded this ceasefire and continued to attack Ukraine’s power plants and electrical grid with Shahed 136 drones. 3 After another, albeit brief, ceasefire from May 8th to the 10th, coinciding with Victory in Europe Day, Russia resumed attacks on Ukraine using Shahed drones. While the majority of the drones are being downed, 12.5 percent on average across the assessed reporting period are hitting their targets. In a worsening development, May has so far experienced a much greater hit rate of 18 percent. Only a small number of the drones are required to survive the journey to cause great damage to Ukrainian infrastructure and other targets. Ultimately, the Shahed 136 is a key weapon to Russia that enables it to maintain daily destructive pressure on Ukraine, despite negotiation attempts to end the war. Russia may be learning new ways to avoid its Shahed 136 drones being downed by Ukraine.
This report assesses data covering the period of March 1, 2025, to May 12, 2025, on the Russian military’s attacks with Shahed 136 drones, building upon a previous assessment released in early March 2025. 4 We assess the data as the number of Shahed 136 reportedly launched, the number intercepted, the number that successfully struck their targets, the number of drones reported as “lost”, and the number of drones that reportedly returned to Russian (or Belarusian) territory. The data analyzed for this report came from open-source channels verified by the Institute and official statements released by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Assessing the true number of Shahed 136 drones used in the attacks continues to be complicated considering Russia’s prolific use of decoy drones like the Gerbera and the Parody that mimic the Shahed.
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