Asymmetric Warfare: Over two years, the Russian army has launched 1834 combined missile strikes on Ukraine, while Ukraine is forced to respond mainly with drone attacks

In addition to ground combat, the Russia-Ukraine war involves another crucial dimension: a war against the opponent’s military and civilian infrastructure, primarily waged with missiles and drones. This dimension of the conflict carries not only material but also significant psychological implications. Except during large-scale offensives, ground combat receives limited media coverage. In contrast, infrastructure strikes typically make the news, often accompanied by photo and video documentation, effectively creating a daily news backdrop. Moreover, these attacks frequently claim civilian lives, which leaves a stronger impression on the public than military casualties.

This war is conducted by both sides but is asymmetric in nature.

Russia: total war

Between 28 September 2022 and 10 November 2024, Russia launched 1834 combined firepower strikes on Ukrainian territory, using various types of missiles (cruise and ballistic) and attack drones, according to the ‘Massive Missile Attacks on Ukraine’ database compiled by Petro Ivaniuk. A total of 16,000 missiles and drones were deployed, with 75% (just over 12,000) intercepted and shot down.

In the initial stage of the invasion, Russia avoided extensive missile use and restricted target selection, according to experts from the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). During this phase, Moscow adhered to its initial invasion plan and refrained from targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, either because it believed it could capture and subsequently use it or due to unresolved issues with missile logistics and targeting. However, by October 2022, Russia had launched 56 attacks on Ukraine involving 512 missiles and drones. Between then and spring 2023, the monthly average was 22 strikes. 

The frequency of Russian strikes then surged: from May to November 2023, there were an average of 53 attacks per month, with roughly 470 missiles and drones used in each month. Between December 2023 and June 2024, the average monthly strikes rose to 100, though the volume per strike lessened slightly to around 640 missiles and drones.

In the past four months, Russia has significantly ramped up its firepower, averaging 135 strikes per month and approximately 1,360 missiles. From fall 2022 through the end of 2023, the average daily count of missiles and drones used was 12; in the first half of 2024, it grew to 22 per day, and in recent months, it has exceeded 50 per day. This escalation accompanied Russia’s intensifying offensive in the Donbas, reflecting its twin goals: to destroy Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and to apply maximum psychological pressure to push Kyiv and the West toward concessions that could conclude the conflict on terms favourable to Moscow. Out of the 1834 attacks, using 16,000 missiles and drones, nearly two-thirds (1202 attacks and 10,000 missiles) have occurred since the beginning of this year, likely due in part to a sharp increase in Russia’s available arsenal.

Notably, despite the exponential rise in missiles and drones launched over the summer, Ukraine’s interception rate remained high at over 80%. However, in October and early November, this rate sharply dropped to 60%.

Intensity of Russian missile and drone attacks, 2022–2024

Ukrainian air defence effectiveness, July–November 2024

Russia has used a total of 52 different missile models in strikes on Ukraine, launching them from various geographic locations and in diverse combinations (including long-range attack drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles) to make it harder for Ukraine to defend its airspace. Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure have had serious long-term consequences, impacting civilians and damaging power, water, sewage, and heating systems, as well as the country’s overall economy, according to a report by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. The mission estimates that full recovery and repair of this damage will require years and substantial resources from both the state and the private sector, especially given an economy strained by armed conflict. Ukraine is expected to face significant electricity shortages this winter, and some regions may be left without heating.

Unlike Russia, which uses all available weaponry in strikes on Ukrainian territory, Ukraine is restricted by Western ‘red lines’ that prevent it from using allied high-precision weaponry to strike targets inside Russia. These restrictions have forced Kyiv to continuously improve its drone technology, according to researchers from the independent data journalism project Texty.org.ua. Their study analysed Ukrainian attacks on Russian targets from February 2022 to September 2024.

The effectiveness of Ukrainian strikes has risen sharply over the past year. From January to September 2024, Ukraine carried out five times more strikes on critical Russian targets than in the previous two years combined, with nearly all these attacks conducted using drones. Ukraine’s military has primarily targeted Russian military sites: while Ukrainian drones attacked these targets 17 times in 2022 and 2023, they conducted more than 30 successful strikes from January to September 2024. Since April 2024, Ukrainian drones have significantly increased the intensity, range, and precision of their attacks. Whereas in 2022-2023, Ukraine typically managed no more than one successful attack per day, since April 2024, both the daily success rate and the monthly volume of attacks have increased. For instance, in April 2024, Ukrainian drones struck three Russian military airfields (in Kursk, Saratov, and Krasnodar regions), damaging Tu-95MS strategic bombers and destroying two Su-25 aircraft. A major success for Ukraine was an April drone strike on the ‘Voronezh M’ long-range radar station in Orsk, Orenburg region, which reached a record distance of 1800 kilometres.

A similar trend was observed in Ukrainian strikes on Russia's oil industry. In 2022, such strikes occurred no more than once a month (for example, in June 2022, a modified civilian drone attack caused a fire at the Novoshakhtinsk refinery, one of southern Russia’s largest fuel suppliers linked to Viktor Medvedchuk's business interests). By 2024, however, these strikes intensified. At the beginning of the year, drones sparked a major fire at the Ust-Luga oil and gas terminal near St Petersburg and struck the large Slavneft-YANOS refinery in Yaroslavl. In May, Ukrainian drones reached the catalytic cracking unit of the Salavatneftekhim refinery in Bashkortostan, over 1500 kilometres from Ukraine's border. Texty.org.ua’s analysis counted 56 successful strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, including refineries and storage facilities.

Ukrainian attacks on transportation infrastructure have also intensified, including an August 2024 strike on the Kerch ferry crossing and a September strike on Moscow's Zhukovsky airport, which damaged two ferries used for rail and vehicle transport. This year, Ukraine also began targeting industrial and energy infrastructure. Damaged facilities include the Redkino Research Plant near Tver, defence industry sites in Nizhnekamsk, the Gorbunov aviation plant in Tatarstan, and the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant, among others. Ukrainian drones also struck several energy facilities, including the Konakovo power plant in Tver region, the ‘Yeletskaya’ substation in Lipetsk region, and transformers at the Novocherkassk power plant in Rostov region. The report documented 14 successful strikes on industrial sites, 6 on energy facilities, and 10 on transport infrastructure.

The intensity of Ukraine’s drone warfare does not compare to Russia’s full-scale campaign using thousands of missiles. While the increased frequency of Ukrainian attacks has yet to critically impact Russian industry or the economy, Ukrainian drone strikes are becoming a costly threat. Drones do not destroy entire refineries, and they usually only inflict limited damage on individual units. The Ust-Luga and Ryazan refineries resumed operations within weeks of the attacks, according to Sergey Vakulenko in his analysis for the Carnegie Centre. While strikes on Russian refineries generate financial losses for Russian oil companies, they do not affect the state budget or significantly impact Russia’s export revenues. 

Attacks on industrial and military targets cause substantial damage, especially relative to the cost of the drones, which is a fraction of the damage inflicted. However, for drone warfare to become a decisive factor in the conflict and a source of significant economic harm, the number of successful attacks would need to increase several times over.