Russia’s military is testing a new approach to its nightly drone campaigns against Ukraine, one that the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says borrows directly from Iranian aerial attack doctrine. By loitering long-range drones at high altitude before launching coordinated, multi-wave strikes, Russian forces are attempting to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses through saturation rather than precision. The shift, documented in ISW assessments from April 2025, represents a tactical evolution with real consequences for Ukraine’s ability to protect its cities and infrastructure.
What is verified so far
The core finding comes from ISW’s Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment published on April 12, 2025. That report describes how, beginning in late March and early April 2025, Russian forces started loitering long-range drones at high altitude outside target areas before conducting synchronized multi-drone strikes. ISW characterized this operational method as consistent with wave and saturation concepts attributed to Iranian one-way attack doctrine, noting that the drones are held in reserve and then pushed toward targets in timed groups rather than as isolated sorties.
The Iranian model ISW references is well documented. On April 13 and 14, 2024, Iran launched a large-scale airborne attack against Israel that included ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and UAVs fired in coordinated waves. The U.S. Department of Defense later released a detailed account describing how Israeli and U.S. forces worked with regional partners to intercept the incoming projectiles. That breakdown underscored the logic behind the Iranian operation: send enough munitions over a prolonged window to strain and potentially saturate layered air defenses, forcing defenders to expend large numbers of interceptors to keep pace.
ISW argues that Russia is now adapting this concept for its drone war in Ukraine. Instead of small, discrete salvos, Russian forces are increasingly using extended attack windows in which Shahed-type drones circle at altitude, adjust their approach vectors, and then converge on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure in several waves. The aim is not necessarily to ensure that any one drone gets through, but to create a cumulative pressure that exposes gaps in radar coverage, drains interceptor stocks, and forces Ukrainian air defenses to remain on high alert for hours at a time.
Russia’s drone campaign has also grown in raw volume. An analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security compiled Shahed-type launches from March 1 to May 12, 2025, and counted 7,974 drones launched on a near-daily basis during that period. The overall hit rate for those drones stood at 12.5%, but by early May 2025 the rate had climbed to roughly 18%. That increase coincided with Russia’s inclusion of Gerbera and Parody decoy drones in its strike packages, which complicate Ukrainian tracking and interception by forcing defenders to treat every radar return as a potential threat.
The production side of this campaign has changed as well. Russia initially relied on imported Iranian Shahed drones but has since transitioned to domestic manufacturing and upgraded designs. Reporting indicates that Russian facilities are now assembling and modifying Shahed-derived systems on home soil, enabling the nightly swarm attacks that define the current aerial war. That shift from dependency on Iranian supply lines to self-sufficient production gives Russia the ability to sustain high launch tempos and experiment with new tactics without waiting on foreign deliveries.
What remains uncertain
Several important questions lack definitive answers. No primary Russian military statements or official records have confirmed that Moscow deliberately adopted Iranian tactics. ISW’s assessment is analytical, drawing on observable patterns in launch behavior rather than intercepted communications or leaked planning documents. The comparison to Iranian wave attacks is based on operational similarity (loitering munitions, multi-wave salvos, and attempts at saturation), not on proven coordination, joint exercises, or a formal doctrinal transfer between Tehran and Moscow.
Direct Ukrainian defense ministry data on the impact of these longer raids is also absent from the available reporting. The hit-rate figures from the Institute for Science and International Security provide one measure, but they come with a significant caveat: the inclusion of Gerbera and Parody decoy drones in Russian packages makes it difficult to determine how many of the 7,974 launches were actual warheads versus decoys designed to waste interceptors. If a large share of the launches are unarmed decoys, then the apparent rise in hit rate might overstate the effectiveness of Russia’s strikes. If most are armed, the same numbers could indicate that Ukrainian defenses are increasingly stressed.
Whether the rising hit rate reflects improved Russian tactics, declining Ukrainian interceptor stocks, or simply a statistical artifact of decoy counting remains an open question. Without detailed Ukrainian disclosure on interceptor expenditure, radar tracks, and damage assessments, outside analysts must infer effectiveness from partial data sets and satellite imagery. That uncertainty limits how confidently observers can say that saturation tactics are achieving the strategic effects Russia seeks, such as long-term degradation of Ukraine’s power grid or air defense network.
There is also no declassified U.S. intelligence in the available sources that links specific Iranian training or technology transfers to Russia’s current drone evolution. The U.S. Department of Defense sources focus on Iran’s April 2024 attack on Israel and general characterizations of Iranian tactics rather than on Russian operations in Ukraine. In one briefing, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder described Iran’s missile and drone attacks as “reckless” and destabilizing, but his remarks were confined to that regional context. Drawing a direct institutional link between Tehran’s doctrine and Moscow’s battlefield behavior would require evidence, such as training exchanges, shared planning documents, or technical advisors, that has not surfaced publicly.
ISW’s conclusion that Russia is experimenting with Shahed launch tactics to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses is therefore best understood as a hypothesis grounded in pattern analysis, not a definitive account of Russian doctrine. Changes in strike package size and timing observed in late March and early April 2025 could represent deliberate doctrinal borrowing, independent tactical innovation, or trial-and-error adjustments driven by battlefield feedback. The distinction matters for predicting how these attacks will evolve: a formal doctrine is more likely to be institutionalized and scaled up, while ad hoc experimentation might shift again if Ukrainian defenses adapt.
How to read the evidence
The strongest evidence in this story comes from two categories: U.S. government primary sources documenting Iranian attack methods, and quantitative launch data tracking Russian drone use over time. The Department of Defense account of the April 2024 Iranian salvo provides a concrete, officially verified baseline for what wave and saturation tactics look like when executed at scale, including the mix of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and UAVs fired in coordinated sequences and the defensive challenges that pattern creates. That baseline is what ISW uses as a reference point when it identifies similar rhythms in Russian drone behavior over Ukraine.
The Institute for Science and International Security’s dataset of 7,974 Shahed-type launches across roughly ten weeks offers the most granular picture of Russia’s drone tempo. The jump from a 12.5% overall hit rate to approximately 18% in early May is a meaningful data point, but it requires careful interpretation. A higher hit rate could mean Ukrainian defenses are being stretched thin, which would support ISW’s thesis about saturation tactics gradually eroding defensive performance. Alternatively, it could reflect shifts in Russian target selection toward less protected infrastructure, or methodological changes in how hits and misses are counted when decoys are present.
ISW’s observational work on loitering patterns and multi-wave salvos fills in some of the qualitative gaps left by the raw numbers. By tracking when drones are launched, how long they remain in the air, and the sequencing of their final attack runs, analysts can infer intent even without access to Russian planning documents. When those patterns resemble the documented Iranian approach, it is reasonable to posit influence or convergence. Still, the absence of direct evidence of coordination means that such inferences should be treated as provisional rather than conclusive.
For readers trying to assess the broader implications, the key is to separate three layers of confidence. At the factual layer, there is strong support for the claim that Russia has dramatically increased Shahed-type drone use, that it now produces those systems domestically, and that it is experimenting with loitering and multi-wave strikes. At the analytical layer, there is a plausible but not proven argument that these tactics reflect Iranian-style saturation concepts. At the speculative layer, questions about long-term strategic impact (whether Ukraine’s air defenses can sustain current interception rates, and whether Russia can maintain or further escalate its launch tempo) remain unanswered given the limits of open-source data.
What is clear from the available reporting is that Russia’s drone war is no longer a simple matter of sporadic one-way attack UAVs. It has become a sustained, industrial-scale campaign in which tactics, production, and defensive countermeasures are all evolving at once. Whether or not Iranian doctrine is the direct template, the end result for Ukraine is the same: longer, more complex nights under fire, and a grinding test of how long its air defenses, and the foreign supplies that underpin them, can keep pace with a shifting threat.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
