PUBLISHED on August 14, 2025, 11:38 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary: Russia is escalating its air war against Ukraine, launching a record 6,200 drones in July in a brutal “grind down” strategy to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.
-This massive increase in drone swarms, which includes decoys, is designed to help more lethal and expensive cruise missiles reach their targets.
-Despite this onslaught, and the continued high operational tempo of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet even after the losses from “Operation Spiderweb,” Ukraine’s own deep-strike drone campaign continues to successfully hit high-value targets deep inside Russia, exposing the vulnerabilities of Moscow’s own air defense systems.
Russia Doubles Down on Attacks, But Cannot Stop Ukraine’s Deep Strikes
WARSAW, POLAND: The latest UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Intelligence Update assessment for the month of July 2025 reveals Moscow has no new strategy or innovative approach in its attempt to subjugate Ukraine.
Instead, the Russian military is continuing its aviation, missile, and drone attacks in the hope that this will eventually reap some breakthrough in the situation on the ground.
“Russia is doing what they always end up doing in any conflict,” said a former NATO member nation intelligence officer who spoke to National Security Journal about the latest developments in theatre.
“What is the signature Russian approach to a long-term conflict? They keep pushing and trying to grind you down bit by bit. It is an overall, long-haul strategy that they can get away with because they believe they always will have more assets – whether they are people or hardware or munitions – than the other guy.”
“They will use these larger numbers to overwhelm the Ukrainians if they can. It is an unsophisticated strategy, to be sure. It belies these reports we have read for years from Russian military thinkers about Russia’s modern, 21st-century excellence in maneuver warfare capabilities. The massive numbers of new-age weaponry that they were supposed to have been producing for the last decade have also not saved the day for them. Instead they have taken a giant step backward and are following Stalin’s philosophy of war that says ‘quantity has a quality all its own’,” he explained.
Drones Are Masking Missile Attacks
Part of the reason for the ever-increasing number of drones being launched against Ukraine is that the more of these comparatively cheaper drones there are in the air, the greater the chances are that the multimillion-dollar missiles will not be intercepted.
The MoD’s report on last month’s activity tells the tale:
-In July 2025, Russia carried out some 6,200 one-way attack uncrewed aerial systems (OWA UAS) against Ukraine. This is a new monthly high – exceeding what were estimated to be 5,600 such attacks that were launched throughout June 2025.
-Large numbers of Russian OWA UAS are increasingly combined with attacks involving some of Moscow’s most advanced and high-performance missiles. By launching swarms of drones in conjunction with either air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM) or ballistic missiles the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) are attempting to overwhelm Ukraine’s air and missile defense network. Giving the Ukrainian air defense forces too many targets to shoot at increases the chances that the heavier and more lethal missiles will survive to reach their targets.
-Russia is also employing ever-larger numbers of what appear to be OWA UAS on radar scopes, but which are actually “dummy” decoys that do not have a proper guidance system on-board. Using them in conjunction with live warhead UAS variants adds to the confusion and has become standard practice for Russia’s “grinding down the Ukrainians” air strategy.
Long-Range Aviation Against Ukraine
What the Russian military calls “Long Range Aviation (LRA)” and what the rest of the world calls heavy bombers continue to be flown in regular attacks against Ukraine.
The operational tempo of these raids has continued at a relatively steady pace.
Even the success of Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb on 1 June 2025 has not impacted the sortie rates as had been hoped.
The attacks continue, even though there is a smaller fleet of aircraft available today, thanks to the many bombers destroyed or damaged in the June operation.
There were seven LRA strike packages flown in July with more than 70 long-range missiles and glide bombs launched.
In the meantime, Ukraine’s own OWA UAS strikes continue to hit targets deep inside Russian territory.
There have been numerous, high-profile attacks on Russian oil and other energy production centers, ammunition depots, defense industrial facilities and other high value targets.
Russia’s Air Defenses Aren’t Perfect
Despite claiming to be one of the world’s leaders in this military technology, Russian air defense systems are failing to adequately protect military installations and industrial enterprise sites that are within range of Ukraine’s UAS designs.
And the range at which they operate increases all the time.
Senior Kremlin officials are also chafing at the inability of their military to thwart these attacks and the almost regular disruptions that they cause to air travel at commercial air hubs in major Russian cities.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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