Russia has brought approximately 7,400 missiles and 3,700 Shahed attack drones at targets in Ukraine during its 22-month-old invasion, Kyiv said on Thursday, illustrating the vast scale of Moscow’s aerial assaults. Ukrainian air defences were having the potential to shoot down 1,600 of the missiles and 2,900 of the drones, air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said in televised comments. “We are encountered with a huge aggressor, and we are fighting back,” he stated. He said the lower missile downing rate was because of the utilization of supersonic ballistic missiles, which are much difficult to hit, as well as the fact that the West supplied Ukraine with advanced Patriot air defence systems only well into the war.
Ukraine has got advanced air defence systems, involving several Patriots, from Western allies throughout the invasion, allowing it to shoot down more missiles. Meanwhile the cheaply-produced, Iranian-made Shahed drones, known in Ukraine for their noisy petrol engines, have been used many and many more times in Russia’s aerial assaults on Ukrainian infrastructure far behind the war’s front lines in the east and south of the nation. “Ten to 15 areas are engaged in shooting down Shaheds every night,” Ihnat revealed.
Russia says it only fires on military targets though Moscow has also agreed to targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Russia says it does not target civilians, despite thousands of documented civilian deaths throughout the war. Russia started bringing the drones at infrastructure facilities in September 2022. They initially dazed Ukraine’s air defences, as they were harder for standard air defence radars to detect than missiles, which forced Kyiv to cooperate.