Ukraine: more than 408,000 Russian drones neutralised since the start of 2026, over 35,000 of them Shahed-type

Ukraine’s Armed Forces have neutralised 408,000 Russian drones since the start of 2026, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence announced, according to Defence Industry Europe. More than 35,000 were Shahed-type, and all were shot down in a little under ten months. The rest were about 248,000 fixed-wing drones and about 125,000 multicopters.

On these figures fixed-wing drones account for about 61 percent of the total, multicopters for 31 percent and Shaheds for 9 percent. The ministry says each strike was recorded on video in the DELTA battle management system and verified by Brave1, Ukraine’s defence innovation hub. Brave1 was created by the Ukrainian government in 2023 to connect manufacturers and the Armed Forces and speed up testing of new systems.

DELTA and Mission Control

DELTA lets units confirm that a drone was shot down and revisit the details of each engagement, so commanders see which solutions work and apply them faster to other units. It gathers data from drones, sensors and units on a digital map and is part of the command and control infrastructure Ukraine uses on the battlefield. The ministry counts it among the technologies that give its forces an advantage over Russia. In September Ukrainian units also logged 1.8 million completed-mission results through Mission Control, a subsystem of DELTA. That figure covers all kinds of missions, not only drone interceptions.

The figures show the scale of the drone war. On average Ukrainian forces hit about 1,400 Russian drones a day, with Shahed-type drones accounting for more than 115 a day. Russia often combines large drone waves with ballistic missiles, as in the overnight attack with 16 ballistic missiles and more than 200 drones that left 550,000 households without power. To intercept missiles Kyiv is asking for more Patriot systems, a subject Zelensky also discussed with Lockheed Martin in Kyiv.