Key Points and Summary – Russia turned Iran’s Shahed into a cornerstone of its Ukraine campaign—now producing swarms domestically to saturate air defenses and grind infrastructure.
-Output has exploded, with launches reportedly hitting 800 in a night. Iran–Russia frictions aside, Moscow’s industrial push is clear.
U.S. Army Pvt. 1st Class Ian Wojick, assigned to 552nd Military Police Company, 25th Infantry, aims a DroneBuster, an anti-drone weapon, toward the sky during the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center Exportable (JPMRC-X) exercise at Fort Magsaysay, Philippines, June 1, 2025.
This iteration of the JPMRC-X marks the second Combat Training Center (CTC) rotation conducted in the Philippines. As part of the Army’s premier regional CTC, JPMRC-X enables the U.S. Army, joint force, allies, and partners to develop skills in realistic environments and conditions. Through exportable capabilities, JPMRC-X strengthens war-fighting readiness, enhances multilateral relationships, and contributes to regional security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Keith Thornburgh)
-The U.S., meanwhile, risks trailing in low-cost, expendable attack drones.
-A Trump executive order and a Pentagon memo vow to “unleash” American drone dominance, but critics argue the pace and scale fall short.
-The near-term answer isn’t exquisite tech—it’s cloning simple, long-range, one-way drones by the tens of thousands, arming units fast, and training to fight with swarms—not just admire them.
Where’s the American Shahed Drone?
The Shahed drone has become a key weapon in Russia’s war with Ukraine.
According to an IISS report back in April, Russia has “doubled down” on the use of the drones, by “launching ever-increasing numbers, expanding production capabilities and refining tactics.”
That report, which cited Ukrainian Air Force figures, found that the number of drones launched by Russia had been increasing month-to-month, from late 2024 to early 2025. In fact, Russia has sent 34,000 drones and decoys into Ukraine so far this year, nine times the number in the equivalent amount of time in the previous year.
Swarming the Skies
The New York Times reported this month on the full story of how the Shahed drone became so important to the Russian war effort.
Russia reached a deal in 2022 with Iran to use the drones and, eventually, to manufacture them within Russia. When Russia launched 43 drones at Ukraine in a single night that year, it “made headlines around the world.” But this month, Russia launched more than 800 of the drones in a single night.
How did Russia do it? According to the Times, the one-way attack drones have been prioritized by Vladimir Putin, and they’re now being produced at two different facilities inside Russia.
Along with missiles and decoys, the Times said, Russia is using the drones to “saturate air defenses and mount mass onslaughts on Ukraine’s weapons production facilities, energy infrastructure and cities.” It even led to a possible international incident when some of its drones crossed over into the NATO state of Poland, leading to an Article 4 declaration from that country. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, this month, threatened all-out war with NATO should it start shooting down drones over Ukraine.
“The war has reached another inflection point in how drones are being used, both at the front line and in the strike campaigns being conducted by Russia and Ukraine,” Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Times.
Ukraine had a drone advantage earlier in the year and maintains a lethal drone capability. But Russia, if it hasn’t erased that advantage, appears on the verge of doing so. That advantage has “diminished in recent months in light of Russia deploying its own elite drone formations and better organization in how they deploy drones,” Kofman added.
And while Russia maintains that its drones are targeted at military targets, it certainly hasn’t turned out that way.
Russia vs. Iran?
Meanwhile, CNN reported back in August that Russia and Iran were in tension over the drone effort. Russia had reached an agreement with Iran to manufacture the Shahed drones inside Russia, at Alabuga, 600 miles east of Moscow, with that facility continually growing. The original deal was for $1.75 billion, CNN reported.
But CNN quoted an intelligence source as stating that Russia’s drone arrangements “have effectively marginalized Iran, revealing a rift between Moscow and Tehran,” with Iran “growing increasingly impatient with the little return it’s received from the deal with Russia.” Tehran is also upset about what it perceives as a lack of support from Moscow during its brief war with Israel this summer.
Per CNN, it could even lead to Russia selling the drones back to Iran, whose stocks are depleted following its war with Israel.
Why Can’t the U.S. Do That?
But there’s another angle to Russia’s drone revolution: That the U.S. risks falling way behind Russia and other countries when it comes to attack drone capability.
The War Zone argued in a piece this month that the U.S. “needs to be building tens of thousands of Shahed-136 Clones right now.”
The author, Tyler Rogoway, says that he’s been arguing for years that the U.S. needs to take drones seriously, and the Pentagon is now “desperately trying to play catch-up.”
“This massive failure in vision could be heavily paid for in blood if a major conflict were to erupt between the U.S. and a capable adversary,” Rogoway writes.
In July, the Pentagon released a memo titled “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance.” Addressed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to U.S. military commanders and senior Pentagon leadership, the memo describes drones as “the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation, accounting for most of this year’s casualties in Ukraine,” while also blaming the previous administration for “red tape.”
The memo is building on an executive order from President Donald Trump, issued on June 6 of this year, also titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance.”
“The United States must accelerate the safe commercialization of drone technologies and fully integrate UAS into the National Airspace System,” Trump said in the order.
The executive order also called to “accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets.”
Hegseth’s memo calls for the Pentagon to “bolster” the U.S. drone sector by approving American drone products, to “power a technological leapfrog” by making those products available to combat units, and “ train as we expect to fight.”
The memo also calls on the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to team up with the Undersecretaries of Defense for Research and Engineering (R&E) and Acquisition and Sustainment (A&S), to explore whether the same categorization that applies to Group 1 and Group 2 drones can be applied to Group 3 as well.
The “Secretary of War”’s memo concludes with the declaration that “the Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off.”
Is it Too Late?
Rogoway, writing for The War Zone, argues this might be too late, and that the Pentagon should be looking to build “tens of thousands” of drones per year, rather than just hundreds or thousands. Or else, the U.S. will risk falling behind Russia and China.
The key, he argues, is to “clone” existing drones.
The drones needed, he writes, are “not complex. They are not expensive. They are anything but exquisite. They are also not innovative in any way. In fact, they take a play right out of our adversary’s playbook.”
“Two types of relatively simple and adaptable long-range, expendable drones, built at scale by multiple companies, big and small. No, it’s not that much of an ask, is it?” Rogoway writes. “So let’s do it. Waiting for tomorrow is now too late.”
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, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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