Having suffered several weeks of setbacks in the field, Russia appears to have renewed its assaults on Ukraine’s major cities, mainly via missile and drone attacks. Despite protestations to the contrary from Kremlin ally Iran, there is growing evidence that Russia is using large numbers of Iranian drones. This includes the Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drone, which has a range of more than 2,000km. This allows Russia to strike at population centres well behind the lines of contact.
On October 17 alone, 43 of these drones attacked Kyiv, killing four people and destroying vital civil infrastructure. Drones expert Dominika Kunertova of the Center for Security Studies in Zurich runs through the various classes of drone and concludes that while they can exert considerable psychological pressure in terms of damage to the Ukrainian people’s morale, they are unlikely to directly influence the outcome of the war.
