Russia relies on the drone count, not on technological upgrades - Defense Express

He made these comments on Espreso TV.

“The fact that Russians have thermobaric munitions for Shahed drones was known at the beginning of this year. However, this information only recently became public. It came to light after our drone operators studied this development in Russian drones and tested the thermobaric munitions at Russian oil refineries. As we can see, those tests went very well,” Kyrychevskyi said.

The expert states that Russia’s mass drone production doesn’t mean improved technology.

“Russians are currently focused on scaling up drone production. Mass production means keeping things simple technology-wise. There’s no need to think of Russian drones as having amazing features, they don’t. You can’t make a drone that costs a few hundred dollars highly advanced. The issue is that there are too many Shaheds and Gerberas. In the first half of 2024 alone, 7,000 Shahed UAVs were launched at Ukraine. So, Russia’s main challenge is to increase production, not to make the UAVs more effective,” he added.

• In October 2024, Russian forces deployed 2,023 Shahed-type attack UAVs and unidentified drones against civilian and military targets in Ukraine.