Key Points and Summary – Russia is dramatically escalating its use of Iranian-designed Shahed drones, now domestically produced as the Geran-2, to terrorize Ukrainian cities.
-A recent New York Times feature highlighted this strategy, noting that Russia has increased its weekly drone launches nearly fivefold in 2025, averaging over 1,000 launches a week since mid-February.
-In a “vast overnight aerial barrage” early on Friday, June 27th, Russia launched over 350 drones and eight missiles, primarily targeting the Khmelnytskyi region.
-These attacks, often hitting civilian targets, are part of a broader attritional strategy to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses.
Putin Isn’t Bluffing: Russia Ramps Up Massive Drone War on Ukraine
Early on Friday, Russia attacked Ukraine with more than 350 drones and eight missiles, in what TVP World described as “a vast overnight aerial barrage.”
The drones mostly hit Starokostiantyniv, in the Khmelnytskyi region. Ukraine’s air force claimed that the majority of the drones were shot down or jammed.
Earlier this week, the New York Times magazine wrote a long feature about Russia’s drones, called “The Weapon That Terrorizes Ukrainians by Night,” and what such weapons have meant to the trajectory of the continuing war.
The story begins with the story of an 80-year-old Ukrainian woman, Liudmyla Zarutska, who was killed this spring in an attack by a Russian Geran-2 drone.
And while the drone itself did not strike her, but instead burned by the resulting fire.
“Geran is one of Russia’s names for its domestically produced line of Shaheds — long-range attack drones of Iranian design,” the Times piece says.
Meet the Geran
“In current form they measure about 11 feet long, weigh more than 400 pounds, and dive almost invisibly through night skies in carbon-fiber hulls tinted black. In tiresome Orwellian fashion, “geran” is also Russian for geranium, and the geranium that slammed onto the reinforced concrete ceiling of Liuda’s apartment carried a fragmenting high-explosive warhead enhanced with small tungsten-alloy balls and an incendiary metallic fill.”
The Times piece also looks at how Russia upped its drone attacks, around the time they made clear that they weren’t going to engage in good-faith peace talks.
“This year, simultaneous to President Trump’s calls for peace, Russia sharply escalated its strikes on Ukrainian cities,” the report said.
A Surprising Source
The drones were provided to Russia by another country currently in the news, Iran. That country began providing Russia with drones in 2022, and Russia has been manufacturing them themselves since 2023.
They’ve also been upping the number of how many they launch into Ukraine, from about 34 per week in the first year of the war to 67 a week in 2023 and more than 200 a week by last year, according to data from the Ukrainian Air Force, which analyzed by the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and published by the Times.
“Since then the attacks have multiplied almost fivefold, to an average of 1,048 launches a week in the six weeks that followed Trump’s push for a cease-fire in mid-February,” the Times said, launching nearly 500 of the drones on a single night in June.
“There has not been a single, uninterrupted three-day period without Shahed launches this year,” Yasir Atalan, a data fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the newspaper. “Civilians have faced or heard Shaheds almost every night.”
The Times added that while drones have replaced conventional warfare for both sides in the Russia/Ukraine war, with the Shahed drones often striking civilian targets, sometimes at “buildings of no discernible military value.”
“The use of Shahed drones by Russia violates the ‘principle of distinction’ between military and civilian objects,” Andrii Haychenko, Ukraine’s deputy minister of justice, told the Times.
Meanwhile, according to an AP story published this week, Ukraine believes Russia is now using a different, newer drone technology.
A piece of drone debris recently discovered, the story said, “had an advanced camera, a computing platform powered by artificial intelligence and a radio link, allowing an operator to pilot it remotely from Russia. It also contained new, Iranian-made, anti-jamming technology, according to a Ukrainian drone expert.”
Ukraine Strikes Back
Ukraine has gotten its own drone attacks in as well, most notably in the long-planned Operation Spider’s Web attack on June 1.
And then, this week, Ukraine managed to strike a Russian S-400 air defense system in Crimea, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR).
“Video footage of the operation published on HUR’s official Telegram channel shows the trajectory of multiple drones as they approach and hit their targets,” the report said.
About the Author Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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