Ukrainian long-range drones have turned Russian airfields into some of the most vulnerable assets in the war, wiping out an estimated $1 billion worth of warplanes in a string of audacious raids. By pairing cheap, expendable aircraft with precise targeting and patient reconnaissance, Kyiv’s security services have shown that even heavily defended bases deep inside Russia are no longer safe. The result is not just spectacular footage of burning jets, but a structural shift in how airpower, air defense, and military spending are being recalculated on both sides.
The latest strikes, highlighted in a “greatest hits” video from Ukraine’s Security Service, cap a broader campaign that has already cost Russia more than $10 billion in damage from drone attacks on its territory. As Ukraine leans into this asymmetric edge, the raids on Russian airfields illustrate how a country under invasion can use low-cost technology to erode a much larger adversary’s combat power and psychological sense of sanctuary.
The $1 billion blitz on Russian airfields
The most eye-catching figure is the roughly $1 billion in Russian aircraft that Ukraine says its drones destroyed in 2025, a tally that reflects both the number and the quality of the targets. Ukraine’s Security Service, the Security Service known as the SBU, released a compilation video on Jan. 28 claiming responsibility for the destruction of more than $1 billion in Russian military assets, including warplanes parked at multiple bases. Separate reporting specifies that the campaign eliminated a total of 15 Russian aircraft, a mix of 11 fighter jets, three helicopters and one Antonov An-26 cargo plane, all struck on the ground in what Ukrainian officials describe as carefully planned long-range operations.
Those 15 aircraft were not random targets of opportunity but part of a coordinated series of attacks on at least five Russian airfields. The SBU has linked the raids to its special forces unit “Alpha,” with Alpha credited for conducting the long-range drone strikes that destroyed the 15 Russian aircraft. In parallel, the Security Service of Ukraine has said that these long-range strikes hit five airfields inside Russia, with aircraft losses alone valued at over $1 billion, and that the same waves of drones also tore into ammunition storage areas and fuel depots at the targeted sites, compounding the damage to Russian logistics.
Inside the SBU’s long-range playbook
What makes these raids so disruptive is not just the price tag, but the method. The Ukrainian state security agency, often referred to simply as The Ukrainian SBU, has showcased a pattern of “double-tap” strikes in which drones hit parked Russian aircraft, then circle back or send follow-on waves to ensure the targets are fully destroyed. In some cases, the SBU’s top Alpha unit has been explicitly named as the operator of these airstrikes, including attacks that hit Russia’s Su-30SM and Su-34 jets, as well as Su-27 and Su-24 planes that are often used to hit Ukraine.
Earlier in the war, Ukraine demonstrated how far this approach could go with Operation Spider Web, a sweeping drone assault that Kyiv says involved more than a hundred drones striking airbases deep inside Russia. Ukraine calls it Operation Spider Web, and open-source analysts have highlighted how Ukrainian operators controlled the drones without crossing into Russian territory, despite Russian attempts at GPS spoofing and cell signal blocking. In that same spirit, the SBU later targeted four major Russian airbases and damaged or destroyed dozens of bombers used in attacks on Ukrainian cities, a set of “spiderweb” strikes that Ukrainian officials say crippled 34% of the Russian bomber fleet and inflicted losses worth “Seven billion US dollars,” according to Ukraine.
Cheap drones versus expensive jets
The economic logic behind these raids is stark. Ukrainian drones used in earlier attacks on Russian air bases have been reported to cost under $1,000 per unit, yet they managed to damage over 40 aircraft in a single operation, a ratio that exposes how vulnerable high-end jets are to low-cost threats. Those $1,000 drones, many of them adapted from commercial technology, have repeatedly slipped through Russian air defenses to strike hardened targets that cost tens of millions of dollars each to build and maintain. For a country fighting a larger, wealthier adversary, that cost curve is not a side note, it is the strategy.
Western backers have taken notice. The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence has highlighted how Each unit in a new tranche of Ukrainian drones costs under $500, describing them as a remarkably low-cost and effective defense solution that can be fielded at scale. London has set a target to deliver 100,000 of these systems to Ukraine this year, underscoring how the economics of drone warfare now favor mass production and attrition rather than a small number of exquisite platforms. On the Russian side, officials have acknowledged that Ukrainian drone strikes inflicted over $10 billion in damage on Russian territory between January and May 2025, a figure that reflects not only destroyed aircraft but also fuel depots, industrial facilities and other infrastructure hit by Ukrainian drones between January and May.
Russia’s mounting losses and shifting air war
The destruction of $1 billion in aircraft is only one slice of Russia’s broader battlefield losses, which some studies now estimate at about 1.2 m casualties, including as many as 325,000 deaths, alongside an estimated close to 600,000 Ukrainian troops killed or wounded. Those figures, cited in an assessment that also noted how Ukrainian drones destroyed $1 billion worth of Russian military aircraft, underline how attritional the conflict has become for both sides. Within that grim ledger, however, the air war stands out because Ukraine has managed to impose disproportionate costs on Russian aviation without fielding a large manned air force of its own.
Ukraine’s military leadership now says that drones account for more than 80% of enemy targets destroyed, a statistic that captures how central unmanned systems have become to Kyiv’s defense. According to Ukraine, that 80% share reflects not only long-range strikes on Russian territory but also frontline attacks on armor, artillery and logistics hubs. On the Russian side, the response has included a growing reliance on decoy drones in Ukraine that carry no payload and are designed to exhaust air defenses, a tactic that Russia has used to complicate Ukrainian targeting and force Kyiv to spend valuable interceptor missiles on fake threats.
A template for future wars
For Western militaries watching from the sidelines, the Ukrainian raids on Russian airfields are less an anomaly than a preview of how future conflicts might unfold. Earlier Ukrainian attacks showed that drones costing under $1,000 could damage over 40 aircraft at well-defended bases, a lesson that has prompted fresh scrutiny of how NATO protects its own runways, fuel farms and parked jets from similar swarms. Analysts have warned that the question is not How deeply such attacks will impact Russian operations, but how quickly other actors will copy the playbook.
Ukraine’s own trajectory suggests that the learning curve is steep. Its SBU has moved from one-off stings to complex operations like the “spiderweb” strikes that, according to SBU, crippled a third of Russia’s bomber fleet, while broader Ukrainian drone strikes have already cost Russia over $10B in damage on its own soil between January and May 2025, as documented in Russian territory. In parallel, Ukraine’s SBU has publicized its role in the 2025 airfield blitz that destroyed 15 Russian aircraft, with both The SBU and Ukraine’s Security Service emphasizing how their Alpha unit executed the long-range strikes.
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