Expanded Production Facilitates Russia’s Massive New Missile and Drone Strikes: Output Exceeds Use Rate Despite Intensified Attacks

Russian industry has succeeded in drastically <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russia-expanded-production-iskander-sustain" target="_blank">expanding production</a> of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, allowing it to comfortably sustain the recently intensified rate of strikes against Ukrainian targets without depleting its arsenals, according to a May 26 report by the London based Financial Times. "Russia is now producing missiles and drones faster than it uses them, building up stockpiles and increasing pressure on Ukraine's stretched defences,” the British paper assessed. As a result, it concluded, “Ukraine will need additional support from the West to maintain its defence – at a time when further U.S. support is uncertain, and European supplies cannot fully replace American weapons, including air defence.” The assessment was published a day after Russia launched a large scale <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/tu95-launch-mass-cruise-missile-strike-ukraine" target="_blank">strike</a> involving&nbsp; 298 drones and 69 missiles against Ukrainian targets. Despite considerable optimism among Western analysts in 2022 that Russian industry would be unable to keep up with wartime production requirements for complex missiles, reports of significant successes in expanding production began to emerge the following year and have continued to increase since then.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/27/article_68350dd82aedd1_63225099.png" title="Launch of P-800 Cruise Missile From Bastion System">When Russian-Ukrainian hostilities first escalated in February 2022, Russia’s relatively minimal drone industry seriously hindered its ability to launch lower end tactical strikes, with its air power having also been limited at the time by Ukraine’s dense and highly capable Soviet-supplied air defence network. Russia’s ability to launch strikes would be <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-s-shahed-136-drone-has-become-russia-s-primary-aircraft-for-striking-ukrainian-positions-unprecedented-attacks-near-odessa" target="_blank">bolstered</a> by procurements of Iranian drones, most significantly the Shahed 136, from mid-2022, and the following year by <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/move-aside-iskander-kn23b-russia-top" target="_blank">procurements</a> of North Korean ballistic missiles including the KN-23B. These procurements supplemented efforts to increase local production. The extent of the increase in missile and drone production is likely intended not only to bolster Russia’s position in its ongoing conflict in Ukraine, but also to strengthen the country’s defences in the face of <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/britain-france-central-role-facilitating-ukrainian-attack-energy-infrastructure" target="_blank">high tensions </a>with NATO and expanding deployments of Western forces across its Russia’s western, northern and eastern borders. The impact of Russia’s much expanded strike capabilities on Ukraine’s position in the war is exacerbated by the dwindling of the country’s air defences, with Soviet systems having been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/pentagon-ukraine-air-defence-likely-run" target="_blank">heavily depleted</a> by late 2022, while the West’s own stockpiles of Western-produced systems such as the Crotale and MIM-104 Patriot have themselves been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/netherlands-replenishes-ukraine-patriot-losses" target="_blank">too far depleted</a> to <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/no-more-patriot-ukraine-stocks" target="_blank">sustain supplies</a> to Ukraine. Successful Russian precision strikes aimed at <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russian-iskanderm-takes-out-ukraine-s300" target="_blank">taking out air defence systems</a> have further exacerbated this.&nbsp;