Nights in Russian factories and the only possible response for Kyiv

Moscow’s war factories are working round the clock; they are bustling and frantic as they ramp up production of drones and missiles to be launched against Ukraine. The town of Alabuga, in the Republic of Tatarstan, was known for its university before the war against Ukraine, but for some years now, its students have been recruited to work in the country’s first factory to master the production and deployment of Shahed drones. A few students have spoken in secret to journalists from "Novaya Gazeta Europe" and described gruelling shifts, juggling lectures and production work, sleepless nights and meagre wages. The university’s student body, however, is insufficient to cope with the relentless workload, and the authorities in Alabuga have begun recruiting Ukrainian youths from the occupied territories, urging them to join the largest drone assembly plant. The backbone of Russian production is propped up by a system that runs non-stop, with the aim of ensuring there is never a shortage of weapons to use against Ukraine, as happened yesterday, when Russia launched a double attack on a large shopping centre in the city of Kryvyi Rih, killing at least fifteen people and injuring more than a hundred.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia’s production target for the 9M723 tactical ballistic missiles in July was sixty units. Instead, Moscow managed to produce 65 of them, in addition to 87 Kh-101 long-range cruise missiles and 50 RM-48U surface-to-air missiles, which are often used as decoys to lure the enemy into wasting anti-aircraft defences. Then there is the rest of the arsenal, combined with North Korean missiles, the use of which could increase in the coming months: according to data gathered by Kyiv, Pyongyang is said to have transferred 50 ballistic missiles to Moscow, now deployed in the south-western Voronezh region, from where they can reach the Ukrainian oblasts of Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia.

In Ukraine, too, factories are working round the clock; production cannot stop – manufacturing and innovation continue in Ukraine’s secret underground facilities. But under the barrage of ballistic missiles, Ukraine is left defenceless, because the one thing it can neither produce nor assemble is precisely what it now desperately needs: the ballistic missile interceptors required to replenish the Patriot batteries. Standing still is not an option, nor is waiting for help from allies. So there is only one solution: to use what Kyiv has armed itself with to the hilt and with which it has revolutionised the war – drones. The aim is to tackle the root of the problem: if there are no interceptors to neutralise the missiles once the attack has begun, then Ukraine is devising ways to destroy Moscow’s launchers to strike the missiles before they are launched. It is no simple task, both because Russia is obviously protecting the weapon that is currently giving it an advantage, and because the Ukrainians, in order to reach certain areas of Russia, need to deploy their drones – and to do so, they require external authorisation. According to the Financial Times, Kyiv would like to use drones equipped with the Starlink system to penetrate up to two hundred kilometres into Russian territory and destroy the launchers, but to do so it needs the approval of Starlink’s inventor, Elon Musk. There are two issues: the first is Musk’s stance, which has so far been somewhat inconsistent regarding attacks on Russian territory; the second is of a personal nature and concerns his relationship with former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who has challenged the Ukrainian government and earned a big ‘heart’ on X from his friend Elon. Many of the drone-related projects were linked to Fedorov and, according to The Atlantic, the former minister was also the driving force behind another operation – which has not yet materialised – involving the launch of swarms of AI-guided drones to strike and disrupt air traffic in Moscow. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for caution regarding the plan: the drones could have not only paralysed airports but also caused casualties amongst passengers of various nationalities. The point is not whether the operation was carried out or not, but that the Ukrainians, with their drones, would have been capable of carrying it out: everything was ready; all that was missing was the president’s go-ahead, and, even though the project has stalled following Fedorov’s resignation, it is by no means certain that it will not be revived.

The void left by the United States in the skies over Ukraine is difficult to fill; every step forward is followed by a step backwards. Trump promised to grant Kyiv a licence to assemble interceptors for the Patriots, but the promise has fallen by the wayside, bogged down by bureaucratic hurdles and diplomatic and domestic dithering. This pattern of advances and setbacks is not only damaging to Kyiv, but also a damning indictment of this Administration. The latest example concerns drones: the Pentagon had invested in a new army unit deployed in Europe to study the war in Ukraine and also to bridge the gap in drone usage. However, the US Army’s assault drone battalion, having lost to Ukrainian drones in a recent simulation, is now set to be disbanded. And it has nothing to do with the defeat in the simulation, but rather the arrival of the acting Chief of Staff, General Christopher LaNeve, who wants to dismantle all the projects of his predecessor, Randy George. Drones are also the Americans’ Achilles’ heel in the Middle East. Learning to counter and utilise them is in their own interests.