Ukraine’s air defenses stopped 64% of Russia’s jet-powered Shahed drones in September’s daytime attacks, against 91% of its other strike drones. Put the other way, the jet drones got through four times as often.
Those are FlightBrief’s figures, counted from the six daytime reports in which Ukraine’s Air Force listed jet drones separately: 200 of 314 jet drones shot down or jammed, and 836 of 916 others. They cover daytime only. The night reports, which carry most of the launches, give a single total for every drone type.
More every month
Russia is sending more of them. Yurii Ihnat, the Air Force spokesperson, said on television on 29 September that Russia had launched 3,177 jet drones so far this month. He put August at about 2,850. In June, he said a week earlier, it was about 350.
“About half of the Shaheds are now jet-powered,” Ihnat said on 23 September. Ukrainian weapons testers counted 180 of them in the whole of 2025.
Too fast for the cheap layer
The propeller Shahed is slow and loud, and Ukraine built a cheap defense around it: machine-gun teams, shoulder-fired missiles and interceptor drones. Ihnat said jet drones usually fly at about 400 km/h and high, where those three mostly cannot reach. That leaves surface-to-air missiles and fighters. He said F-16s, Mirages and MiG-29s now play the key role, and that Ukraine needs more Patriot missiles.
President Volodymyr Zelensky gave the figures for 28 September in his evening address. Ukraine had stopped 70% of all drones that day, he said, and of the jet ones “57% for now”. The Air Force’s daytime report matches: 49 of 86 jet drones stopped. Zelensky called the rate “much lower than it needs to be” and said new interceptors are in testing, some already with combat units.
Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said in late August that Ukraine had four candidate interceptors able to shoot down jet Shaheds. The task, he said, was making them by the thousand.
The same sum in NATO
The alliance is working the same problem. After Italian jets flying for NATO shot down a drone over Lithuania, Secretary General Mark Rutte said on 29 September that NATO would build cheaper counter-drone defenses, “so we are not using high-end jets against low-cost threats”.
Ukraine’s Air Force has not yet published its own total for September. Ihnat’s figure stands at 3,177, against 180 for all of last year.
