Ukraine shot down or jammed 5,833 of the 6,463 Russian drones launched in March 2026, about 90 percent, its defence ministry said. Russia launched about 16,000 drones in the first three months of the year, by the Institute for Science and International Security’s monthly count.
Cheap interceptor drones did much of that work. The Economist reported that interceptors were credited with about 70 percent of the 1,704 Shaheds destroyed in January. Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said in February that one enemy drone in three was now downed by an interceptor. Figures for single attacks run lower, such as more than 40 percent on 24 May.
The jet Shahed changed the sums. About half of the Shaheds are now jet-powered, Ihnat said in late September. On 28 September President Volodymyr Zelensky put the interception rate at 70 percent overall but 57 percent for the jet drones. On 17 October he said the air force was stopping 55 to 60 percent of them.
Interceptors built for propeller Shaheds struggle to catch the faster jets. There is “currently no mass produced effective product among interceptors”, Serhiy Sternenko, a drone adviser to former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, told the Kyiv Independent on 1 October. A few models have downed a small number of the newest jet type.
Ukraine is adding guns as well. Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara said on 11 October that the heavy-calibre turrets in its arsenal number “already in the hundreds”. He said Russia is developing jet drones that fly at about 800 km/h.
The United States is buying into the same fight. In March the Army gave Anduril a ten-year counter-drone contract vehicle with a ceiling of up to $20 billion; its first order, for $87 million, uses Anduril’s Lattice software to link sensors and weapons.
Russia’s hits had already fallen before the jets spread. The share of Shahed-type drones that struck their targets dropped from 22 percent in January to 13 percent in March, the institute calculated from Ukrainian reports.
