Russia launched a record 5,337 Shahed-type drones against Ukraine in June, according to data from the Ukrainian Air Force and Dragon Capital, smashing the previous record of 4,198 set in March.
Russia's bombardments, a fact of life after three years of full-scale war, have intensified dramatically in May and June, with mass attacks becoming more frequent and more deadly.
Russia is now capable of launching in a single night as many drones as it did over an entire month in early summer 2024.
In June 2024 the number of drones launched was 332. On June 27 of this year alone Russia launched 363 drones, on June 17, 440, and on June 29, 477, in what was the largest aerial attack of the full-scale war.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 24 that Russia has launched around 28,000 Shahed-type drones since 2022, with around 10% of them fired since the beginning of the month.
Almost all of Russia’s deep-strike drones are divided into three similar varieties — Iranian-made imported Shaheds, which have been in use since late 2022, Russian-made Gerans, which are direct copies of Shaheds, and more recently Garpiya-A1s, which look similar but use Chinese parts.
There are also inexpensive "dummy drones," or Gerbers, which resemble Shaheds but do not carry explosives.
Gerbers distract Ukrainian radar and anti-aircraft fire and typically make up half of the drones sent into Ukraine in a given attack, a Ukrainian mobile defense group that shoots them down told the Kyiv Independent last month.
Often launched in coordination with cruise and ballistic missiles, Russian kamikaze drones have targeted Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with renewed ferocity in recent weeks, killing dozens of civilians and injuring hundreds more.
"The windows were shattered, and smoke covered the place. We went outside and checked that everyone in the family was alive."
On June 17, 2025 there was the deadliest attack on Kyiv since the start of the year when 30 people were killed in the capital, and 172 others injured during a nine-hour assault.
"My children were already in the bathroom. (My wife and I) were in the corridor. We heard the Shahed's descent, then the hit," Ivan Serebrianskyi, 42, an entrepreneur who lives in the damaged building told the Kyiv Independent on June 17, right after the attack.
"The windows were shattered, and smoke covered the place. We went outside and checked that everyone in the family was alive and well. It's the main thing," he added.
Over the past year and a half, there were only two days when Ukraine was not attacked by missiles and drones of various types, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said during a joint press conference with his German Foreign Minister Johannes Wadefuhl on June 30.
Russia will soon be able to deploy more than 500 long-range drones a night to attack Ukraine as it ramps up production and builds new launch sites for them, a source in Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) told the Kyiv Independent earlier this month.
According to the source, Russia's production rate for one type of drone — Shahed-type Gerans — is up to 70 units per day, from a reported 21 a day last year, and Moscow will soon have 12-15 new launch sites in operation.
Chris York
