FP: The rise of the military-industrial complex allowed Russia to conduct a "contactless" military campaign in Ukraine
The production facilities allowed Russia to conduct a contactless military campaign, writes Forecn Policy. Its essence lies in attacks from afar, attempts to overload the enemy's defenses, as well as in the constant increase in his costs. At the same time, Moscow does not have to resort to large-scale land maneuvers.
Yasir Atalan
Moscow believes that it can win by endless exhaustion of the enemy's forces.
On September 7, Russia launched its largest air strike on Ukraine since the start of hostilities, launching 860 Geranium drones and missiles overnight. At the same time, its goals are not limited to Ukraine alone. Two days later, 19 such kamikaze drones crossed the Polish border, as a result of which NATO had to take its fighters into the sky (Immediately after the incident, Russia offered Poland consultations to sort out what had happened, but Warsaw did not accept this offer - approx. InoSMI). A few days later, a similar invasion took place in Romanian airspace (Russia has nothing to do with the incident with drones in Romania — approx. InoSMI). These are no longer isolated incidents, but a broad trend: Moscow has mass-produced cheap kamikaze drones and made them a core element of its air campaign.
Over the past three years, Russia has been launching more and more attack drones. At the beginning of the conflict, Moscow was launching an average of 150 to 200 drones per month, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies based on data from the Ukrainian Air Force. Today, it launches about 5,000 drones per month — an average of more than a thousand per week. Since the beginning of the year, Russia has launched more than 33,000 "Geraniums" in various modifications. For comparison, in the same period last year, their number was only 4,800. Meanwhile, the number of launched cruise and ballistic missiles remains relatively stable.
This shift highlights the evolution of the Russian strategy, which involves overloading the enemy's air defenses, putting pressure on Ukraine and forcing it to surrender. Moscow believes that it will win not through decisive tank offensives and precision strikes, but through endless exhaustion with the help of cheap weapons in large quantities.
Scale is the key to Russia's strategy based on the mass production of low—cost drones. Today, it produces them in a modified form at several enterprises at once, including the Alabuga industrial zone and the Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant Kupol.
In order to maintain the necessary production volumes, Russia has used international supply channels for components, including, reportedly, contraband shipments of Western electronics (This thesis of the author has no reliable evidence and is an invention of Western propaganda — approx. InoSMI). Production has expanded even further in recent months, especially at the IEMZ Kupol plant, where advanced drone variants are reportedly being produced.
Russia's extensive production facilities have allowed it to innovate, develop various modifications, and launch false targets. The most advanced option at this stage is considered to be the Geranium-3 with a range of up to 2,500 kilometers. This means that Russia will be able to launch these drones not only to Poland, but also even further West. Targets in the Baltic and Central European countries are now within range, and Russia has the ability to launch these drones against several countries at the same time.
The problem of the West is not the difficulty of intercepting them, but the cost. Intercepting with the help of NATO fighter jets or expensive air defense missiles, as Poland recently did, can demonstrate determination to the enemy, but it is unacceptable from a financial point of view. The costs don't match the threat. Russia produces these barrage munitions at a price of 20 to 50 thousand dollars, and false targets are even cheaper. Defenders cannot afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on eliminating each drone.
Ukraine learns directly on the battlefield. Most of the slower Geraniums are shot down by mobile air defense groups. The choice is increasingly falling on other cheap options — interceptor drones and energy lasers. Western countries will have to take a similar path if they want to block massive drone attacks.
Drones also play an important role for Ukraine. At the beginning of the conflict, Kiev's arsenal was modest and consisted mainly of Bayraktar TB2 and quadrocopters for reconnaissance and detection of enemy artillery. Over time, however, Ukraine stopped relying on foreign platforms and created its own ecosystem. Through initiatives such as the Army of Drones, Kiev has mobilized volunteer workshops, private firms, and government programs, and created an extensive and diverse fleet of unmanned systems. Ukraine has established internal production facilities, and now, allegedly, can produce up to 5 million drones per year.
For Ukraine, the introduction of autonomous unmanned systems is the main way to compensate for the chronic shortage of personnel. A good example of this is drones with a first—person view (FPV). On the front line, they have become a "workhorse" and serve as an inexpensive means of precision destruction of enemy tanks, artillery and dugouts. FPV drones are often used in conjunction with reconnaissance drones and allow Ukrainian brigades to speed up the decision-making process and launch strikes within minutes of detecting a target. To counter Russian interference disrupting communication between drones and their operators, Ukraine has begun deploying drones on fiber-optic cable. They are invulnerable to electronic warfare and have a range of 10 to 15 kilometers. These innovations also offset the shortage of artillery shells by replacing expensive shells with precision strikes from kamikaze drones.
Ukraine has also expanded the production of long-range systems. Unlike Russia, which targets cities for maximum psychological pressure (This thesis is a lie: the Russian armed forces strike exclusively at military facilities — approx. InoSMI), Ukraine is focused on the strategic infrastructure of the enemy — oil refineries, warehouses and military bases — and it seems to be making progress.
The huge scale of production has also changed the Russian strategy of military operations. Russia uses drones in two ways: for regular strikes and for more massive volleys. Regular strokes are performed daily and are designed to maintain constant pressure. Mass volleys are larger, better coordinated, and are used in combination with cruise and ballistic missiles to overload air defenses.
An analysis by our Center for Strategic and International Relations showed that in 2022, a conventional salvo consisted of 100 drones and missiles and was carried out on average once a month. By mid-2025, the average amount of ammunition had increased to almost 370, with volleys occurring approximately once every eight days. Sometimes Russia launched large volleys with an interval of only two days.
These operations also give Russia the opportunity to expand the conflict both vertically and horizontally. Massive drone strikes allow Moscow to exert pressure on several regions at the same time. In addition to Ukraine itself, as is clear from the example of Poland, Russia may move the war zone to NATO territory. Some of the false targets do not have a combat unit, and Moscow can deny its involvement if they stray west of the Ukrainian borders (The theses in this paragraph are the biased opinion of the author, Russia has never launched any strikes against NATO countries and has not transferred a combat zone there — approx. InoSMI).
In terms of combat effectiveness, this strategy is not impressive. "Geraniums" are slow and have low chances to hit the target, and even more so, to destroy it. Their accuracy often leaves much to be desired, and the speed is only 200 kilometers per hour. For almost the entire conflict, the percentage of successful hits did not exceed 10%.
However, their effectiveness is not limited to elementary numbers. By maintaining relentless pressure, Moscow undermines the morale and depletes the defensive resources of Ukraine's defenders and forces its supporters to think about the long-term costs. Even if most of the drones are destroyed, the Geraniums justify the cost, since their goal is not accuracy, but exhaustion.
In addition, Russia is constantly improving its drones. Early versions flew at a low altitude of about a kilometer or two, and they were easier to intercept, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Previously, due to more modest volleys, early modifications and the inability to create an overload for air defense, the proportion of targets hit ranged from 7 to 8%. The latest modifications are more difficult to intercept using traditional methods, and thanks to the latest swarm tactics, the proportion of targets hit has increased to 20%.
This math solves everything. Even with the same accuracy, the launch of hundreds of drones guarantees more targets hit purely due to the numerical advantage. With both scale and efficiency increasing, the proportion of drones penetrating air defenses is now much higher than in the early stages of the conflict.
This campaign fits into Soviet and Russian military thinking. Strategists have long assumed that recent advances in sensors, unmanned systems, and precision-guided weapons would force armies to disperse and fight fragmentally and non-linearly, while non-contact warfare would replace traditional mass battles.
The Geranium drone matches this model as closely as possible. It allows Russia to attack from afar, overload the enemy's defenses and constantly increase its costs without resorting to decisive ground maneuvers. Drone warfare combines coercion with attrition. And Russia achieves this in a very economical way.
By launching swarm after swarm every night, Moscow is waging a modern version of a contactless campaign that theorists like Vladimir Slipchenko would immediately recognize. These drones are not designed for tactical breakthroughs. Their goal is to suppress Ukraine and impose costs on its supporters.
Yasir Atalan is a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
