The night was sleepless as a constant barrage of drones and missiles pounded Kyiv. Outside my window, streaks of fire from air defense lit up the sky, chasing Russian drones as they whistled overhead. Then my building shook from a nearby strike.
By morning, I checked in with friends while grabbing coffee, as Ukrainians do. Each admitted they hadn’t slept a minute. This has become the norm for Ukrainians as the Kremlin seeks to break the resolve of the Ukrainian people.
On September 28, Russia launched nearly 500 drones and more than 40 missiles across Ukraine. The barrage killed at least four people and wounded more than 70 in Kyiv, while over 40 were injured in Zaporizhzhia.
Since 2022, Kyiv alone has endured more than 1,800 air raid alarms lasting over 2,200 hours — increasingly during daylight, forcing schools, businesses, and cultural events into shelters for hours at a time. The Russian strategy to force an exhausted population to lose heart is not new, but it is prosecuted with vigor.
What was once Ukraine’s problem is now Europe’s too. As Russia struggles on the battlefield, it is resorting to increasingly ruthless tactics to raise pressure on the Ukrainian people — and now northern Europe — using cheap drones to harass NATO airspace and critical infrastructure.
Lacking supplies of traditional air defense, which cannot scalably be used against drones, Ukraine is racing to develop and scale drone interceptors, while European states rush to buy systems of their own from Kyiv.
However, interceptors take time to produce and operators to train. “Russia can build hundreds of various types of drones per day,” said Heiner Philipp, an engineer with Technology United for Ukraine, adding that the decoys cost roughly $2,000–$10,000 each, while Shaheds with 60 kg (130lb) warheads run to $30,000–60,000 apiece. The cheap cost of decoys makes them effective in overwhelming air defense.
As the New York Times noted: “While Ukraine has been able to shoot down about 80% of the drones launched by Russia, the weapons are cheap to manufacture and Moscow has relied on large volleys that can still kill people and damage infrastructure.”
Moscow is also adapting with countermeasures. Russian forces are now fielding “supercam” drones fitted with radio detectors, enabling them to sense approaching interceptors and trigger automatic evasive maneuvers. “This war is as much about adaptability and iteration as it is about any single technology,” said Deborah Fairlamb, a founding partner at Green Flag Ventures, a US fund investing in Ukrainian-founded companies. “Both Ukraine and Russia adapt constantly.”
Lasers remain a potential solution, but while work is underway, they have not yet been deployed en masse. “In late 2024, Ukraine tested a domestic laser system called Trident. It can destroy drones, bombs, and missiles at up to 3km [1.9 miles] and blind targets at up to 10km,” said Serhii Kuzan, a former adviser to the Ministry of Defense, adding that further details remain classified.
Yet no single technology can decide the war. Survival depends on constant innovation and adaptation.
“Innovation will lead to a strategy of sustained resistance in conditions of, if not constant war, then constant hostility. This will allow us to survive, adapt, and win without illusions, making war operationally meaningless for Russia,” wrote General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief. “But for this to happen, it is crucial to retake and maintain the technological initiative, forcing Russia to adapt, withstand pressure, and defend itself.”
For Vitaliy Goncharuk, the former chairman of Ukraine’s Artificial Intelligence Committee, the real contest is less about dazzling breakthroughs and more about repetition and scale. “The real competition today is in scaling — the ability to produce more. And specifically, to mass-produce a very limited set of innovations that deliver a systematic advantage,” he told this author.
Russia, he warned, has been quicker to absorb this lesson. “They don’t chase innovations that can’t be scaled, nor do they pursue them for PR, publicity, or flashy headlines in Western media,” Goncharuk said.
“Instead, they’ve shown a stronger ability to forecast opponents’ technological trends and adapt quickly. A clear example is the Shahed drone: by adding jet engines and increasing their flight altitude, they were able to bypass many of the counter-drone systems Ukraine had relied on,” he said.
“Early in the war, FPVs chased tanks; now every FPV is chasing people,” said Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian lawmaker from the Holos party. “Their range has expanded from 1–1.5km to up to 40km.” On the front, soldiers have increasingly resorted to putting nets on the roads to try and protect against drone strikes. Now there is a shortage of netting at the front.
“In the east, we’re already putting nets over roads to protect logistics. Within a year, we may face the same in cities, with drones targeting civilians,” added Ustinova. In Kherson, Russia has turned this fear into reality, carrying out what has been described as a “human safari.” Drone strikes have stepped up against bridges, roads, and civilian areas too, as Moscow seeks to split the city in two.
Unable to defend everywhere, Ukraine has also gone on the offensive against the source of the threat. Summer attacks on Shahed production and storage sites paid off. According to the Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi, launches in August fell by a third, down to 4,132 from 6,303 a month earlier. Russia’s peak swarms, once 700 strong, shrank to around 100–120, and on some days, only a few dozen.
But to achieve greater impact, powerful missiles are needed. Europe can provide these, but it mostly still lacks the political will. Time will tell what role the domestically-produced Flamingo missile will play (its solid rocket fuel will be manufactured in Denmark).
The danger of Russian drones buzzing over urban areas and key infrastructure like major airports is no longer confined to Ukraine. The same swarms of drones that darken Kyiv’s skies are already beginning to menace European cities. As Ukraine attests, things can get much worse.
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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