Beginning overnight on Saturday, May 24, Russia rained down nearly a thousand drones and missiles on villages and cities across Ukraine in three nights of large-scale aerial attacks, as civilians spent hours sheltering underground.
Russia’s bombardment killed more than a dozen people and injured dozens more, in one of the largest coordinated attacks since the start of the war.
Such deadly storms of drones and missiles are not cheap to carry out, but the costs of these weapons are sensitive military information that Russia keeps classified.
Experts and media outlets have estimated that attacks like the one this past weekend cost Russia hundreds of thousands of dollars in weaponry. The estimated figures vary significantly, however, and that's before adding in other costs beyond their price tag, like the price of a flight that launches a missile, or storage costs before weapons are used.
"The cost of these large strikes is quite difficult to estimate in the open-source because Russia goes to great lengths to obfuscate the cost of the missiles and drones," said Angelica Evans, a Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
"Particularly with the onset of western sanctions and Russia's many sanctions evasion schemes, it's difficult to know how much all of the various components in the projectiles really cost, let alone the cost of production itself."
What weapons were used in the recent attack?
According to Ukraine’s Air Force, the weekend attack used Shahed drones, decoy drones, three types of cruise missiles, and Iskander-M and KN-23 ballistic missiles.
Most of the 995 weapons — 903 of them — were Shahed kamikaze drones or decoy drones meant to mimic the behavior of Shaheds and overwhelm air defense systems.
Russia also launched 69 cruise missiles: 64 of the Kh-101 variety, 4 Kh-59/69 missiles, and one Kh-22 missile.
The remaining 23 weapons were Iskander-M ballistic missiles or similar North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles.
How much do the weapons cost?
Some experts have tried to come up with price tags for different weapons systems using open-source information, including examining the components of downed weaponry, comparing missiles to similar weapons in the West, and analyzing hacked procurement contract data.
While these methods can give a better sense of how much Russia is paying to carry out its aerial attacks, they result in a range rather than a hard figure.
Take the Shahed, for example. One commonly cited figure is $50,000 per Shahed drone produced in Russia. Others have said the scaling of production in the past year within Russia has lowered the cost, potentially as low as $20,000.
Hacked documents between Russia and Iran, meanwhile, show that Russia negotiated prices for Iranian-made Shaheds earlier in the war in the range of $193,000 to $290,000 per unit, depending on the number ordered. To save money on drones, Russia is increasingly producing them at home. Satellite imagery has detected the expansion of the facilities where Shahed drones are manufactured in Russia.
The cost of a Shahed used by Russia therefore heavily depends on when it was acquired and whether you’re calculating its replacement cost or its original purchase or production price.
Nor do these estimates account for modifications made to the drones by Russians in the field or at the unit level. Another consideration is whether to include the cost of paying the soldiers who deploy the weapon.
"Recent reporting estimates Russia can produce roughly 100 Shaheds per day."
The uncertainty is multiplied hundreds of times over for each drone in a major attack.
But the use of decoy drones provides another complication in calculating the cost of the recent Russian attack: How many of the 903 drones were Shaheds, and how many were the much cheaper decoy drones?
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Service believes the most expensive part of the decoy drones is their engine, which can be bought online for around $350–$500. A complete decoy is likely to cost in the low thousands range.
Yurii Ihnat, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson, has stated that almost half of the deployed drones may be decoys.
And these are only considerations for pricing a drone. Missiles have a heftier price tag — from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per missile — and can also come with a wider price range.
Stockpiling for 'rarer but more intense strikes'
Most ballpark estimates would put a dollar price tag in the high six figures for the recent three-day aerial attack, but the usefulness of such a metric is limited by how much variability there is.
A more helpful metric, said Evans of ISW, would be looking at how many weapons are being launched compared to how many weapons Russia can produce.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to continue scaling up production of weapons, and drones in particular, calling them a major factor in combat successes.
"We have seen recent reporting that Russia has been increasing its ability to produce Shahed drones and decoy variants for many months, and recent reporting estimates Russia can produce roughly 100 Shaheds per day," Evans said.
This suggests that the drones used in the past weekend's attack could be replenished in just over a week.
"Russian missile production capabilities are much more limited, particularly of Iskander ballistic missiles, and the Russians may be trying to stockpile cruise missiles so they can conduct rarer but more intense strike series like we saw over the weekend," Evans added.
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