The Reasons Why Russia Can't Stop Ukraine's Drone Attacks

There are many reasons why a technologically advanced and militarily powerful country like Russia cannot seem to stop Ukrainian drone attacks. 

First, the country is vast and there are not enough air defense systems to protect everything and everyone. Secondly, the Russian political and military tends to prefer assigning blame, thereby eliminating rivals, rather than rewarding success. Thirdly, having agreed to cede authority to the Kremlin, the Russian people do not yet see air defense as their responsibility. As a result, Ukraine's drones will continue to have success identifying and striking targets across Russia at will. JL

Elvira Bary reports in Medium:

Ukrainian drones are reaching deep into Russia and hitting the infrastructure that keeps the country moving. Russia calls itself a superpower. How is this possible? For centuries, Russia’s size was its best protection. Russia was too large to invade easily. But now look at the same map through a drone operator’s eyes. You see thousands of targets spread across enormous territory. Every target wants protection. But there are not enough systems. Secondly, Russia's military is strictly top-down, only requiring command and obedience. People first ask: who will be blamed? Drones move fast and require people in many places to make fast decisions with incomplete information. (But) the person making the decision often does not know whether the system will back him if something goes wrong. So he prefers to do nothing. 

Russian oil refineries are burning.

Not only in border regions. Ukrainian drones are reaching deep into Russia and hitting the infrastructure that keeps the country moving.

And this creates a very simple question: How is this possible?

Russia calls itself a superpower. It sells itself as a fortress surrounded by enemies. For years, state television told Russians that the army had everything under control.

And now small Ukrainian drones fly thousands of miles and hit the country’s biggest oil facilities, creating fuel shortages.

So why does it look as if nobody is stopping them?

This is the question we’ll answer today. I’ll show you why Russia’s air-defense problem goes beyond weapons.

Here’s our roadmap:

What Air Defense Is — a simple guide to the systems that are supposed to stop drones.

Too Many Targets — how Russia’s size has become a weakness.

Ukraine’s Living Shield — why Ukraine is solving the same problem much better, even with less resources.

The Wrong Machine — why centralized attack works better for Russia than local defense.

Hesitant Hands — who is supposed to shoot drones down, and why that system is weak.

The Refinery War — why oil facilities became the perfect target.

What Air Defense Is

Air defense is made of many layers.

The first layer is long-range systems. Russia has famous names here: S-300, S-400. These are powerful weapons built to track and destroy serious threats: aircrafts and large missiles. These systems are complex and expensive.

But a small drone is not a fighter jet. It can fly too low or too slow for the system to see it as a threat. It can even be invisible due to its size and materials. And even if a big system can shoot it down, the math becomes ugly. Using an expensive missile against a cheap drone is like firing a cannon at a mosquito.

The second layer is medium and short-range systems: Buk, Tor, Pantsir. This kind of systems can actually defend a facility from drones, but they also have limits. They need trained crews and radar coverage. Most importantly, they need to be placed in the right location before the drone arrives.

The third layer is electronic warfare. This means jamming. You try to block the drone’s GPS, communication links, or control signal. Sometimes this works very well. Sometimes it does not.

A drone can follow a pre-programmed route. It can fly low and follow terrain. Or it can have enough autonomy to continue even when the signal is degraded. And as this war has shown again and again, every new defense teaches the attacker what to change next time.

The fourth layer is mobile fire groups.

These are teams in vehicles, with machine guns, searchlights, and night-vision devices. Ukraine uses this approach widely because it fits the drone war. Cheap drones require cheap interception. You do not want to spend a fortune to bring down each of these.

But mobile groups only work if they are organized. They must receive warnings early and have the legal authority to shoot.

And that is the basic problem. Russia has high-level air-defense systems, radars, and missiles. What it does not have is a cheap, dense, flexible defense network against thousands of small flying threats.

Too Many Targets

For centuries, Russia’s sheer size was its best protection. Russia was too large to invade easily. Armies stretched supply lines and became easy targets.

But now look at the same map through a drone operator’s eyes.

You will see thousands of targets spread across enormous territory: refineries, fuel depots, airfields, ammunition warehouses, bridges, ports, power plants, drone factories, and military headquarters.

Every target wants protection. But there are never enough systems for everyone.

If a Pantsir protects an oil refinery in Moscow, it is not protecting a refinery in Samara. If radar and mobile groups are assigned to military airfields, fuel depots get exposed.

That is the brutal arithmetic of defense. Ukraine only needs to find the places where the protection is thinner.

This is why the drone campaign is so effective politically. A single successful strike can force Russia to defend dozens of similar targets. Hit one refinery, and every refinery director panics. Hit one fuel depot, and every region asks why it was left exposed.

And Russia has another problem: much of its best air-defense equipment is already needed near Ukraine. The front needs protection from Ukrainian aircrafts, drones, and missiles. Russian bases in occupied territories need protection.

Russia’s size used to be protection, but now it becomes a bill. There are too many things to watch at once.

Ukraine’s Living Shield

Ukraine has the same basic problem as Russia: too much territory, too many targets, and never enough air defense. So how is it coping better?

Almost every night, Russia attacks Ukraine with hundreds of drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, glide bombs, and decoys. No country can cover every target perfectly under that kind of pressure.

Russian missiles still hit Ukrainian cities, doing tremendous damage. Ballistic missiles are especially hard to stop: they can only be handled by Patriot interceptors, which Ukraine lacks. In one recent stretch, Ukraine reportedly intercepted only four of 54 ballistic missiles.

But with drones and cruise missiles, the picture is different.

Ukraine has built something Russia struggles to build: a layered, adaptive, distributed defense system. Not perfect but highly efficient.

In June, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Ukrainian air defenses intercepted nearly 5,300 aerial threats during large-scale attacks. About 90 percent of Shahed, Gerbera, and other drones were shot down, along with 89.4 percent of non-ballistic missiles.

That tells us the real difference.

Ukraine also has to choose what to protect first. But its air defense is tied into the whole society. People receive alerts and move to shelters. If they spot a drone or a piece of Russian military equipment in their location, many would send its photo with coordinates to the military through a special Telegram bot.

Ukraine’s mobile fire groups also evolved under brutal pressure. They learned to shoot down Shaheds with machine guns and searchlights. Now they operate as part of the general armed forces structure and coordinate with other units. When they lack gear or ammunition, they can rely on grassroots volunteer networks to supply whatever they need.

The Ukrainian state is not always efficient, but it is organized around survival. Western air defense systems cover some of the most dangerous threats, while cheaper local tools and mobile units cover cheaper targets. Then new technology fills gaps between them, including interceptor drones and short-range systems.

Then there is feedback.

When something fails in Ukraine, the public pushes. Journalists write about it. That puts pressure on the state and military command to adjust.

In Russia, pressure usually moves the other way: downward.

Officials and commanders hide failure to escape punishment. Responsibility becomes a hot stone passed from hand to hand. And that’s another reason why Russia is so bad at air defense.

The Wrong Machine

With Russia’s military being overall strong, why is it that bad at anti-drone defense?

The answer is in how Russia’s military machine is built to operate.

It is strictly top-down. Orders go downward, while reports go upward. This kind of operation only requires command and obedience. It works for attacking the targets decided by the small group on the top.

Defense is different. It requires many people in many places to make fast decisions with incomplete information. A drone appears. Does it look like a threat? Where is it going? Which unit should respond?

That’s the questions people in a healthy system ask.

But in Russia, people first ask a different question: who will be blamed? Who will become the scapegoat if the missile misses or debris falls on a house?

This is how the drone flies through the state.

A local official may see a threat moving across his region. But if the drone is not aimed at his own facility, why take responsibility? If he orders an interception and it fails, he has created a visible failure. If he uses expensive equipment and nothing happens, he may be accused of wasting resources. If the drone is hit and falls on civilian property, he may be punished. If he does nothing and the drone explodes in another region, that shifts the problem to someone else.

So doing nothing can become the safest choice.

This is not cowardice in the simple sense. It is bureaucratic survival. In a system built on fear, people learn not to touch anything dangerous unless they have direct permission from above.

And drones punish exactly that habit. They move too fast for paperwork and expose the old Russian disease: everyone wants authority, but nobody wants accountability.

There is also the money problem.

Air defense is expensive. And wherever there is budget money in Russia, there are people trying to sit on the flow.

The people placed near the money are not always the most competent engineers or organizers. They are often the safest people politically: loyal and useful.

This produces the classic Russian result: paperwork improves faster than reality.

On paper, mobile groups exist and facilities are defended. Then a drone flies over and hits its target, almost unobstructed.

Omsk gave us the perfect image of this failure.

On July 6, Ukrainian drones reached the Omsk oil refinery — Russia’s largest refinery, deep in Siberia, roughly 2,700 kilometers from Ukrainian-held territory.

The plant halted processing after the attack. One damaged unit handled roughly 38 percent of the refinery’s capacity. Another major unit was shut down because of network damage. For a country already struggling with fuel shortages, this strike was particularly painful.

And here comes the most revealing detail.

After the attack, State Duma deputy Oleg Smolin said that Omsk governor Vitaly Khotsenko had repeatedly appealed to the relevant federal agencies, asking them to strengthen the refinery’s protection. Smolin added that he had also sent appeals on the same issue but no measures were taken.

That is the Russian system in one scene. Local people saw the danger. They asked Moscow for stronger protection. But the refinery was still hit because the federal machine moves slowly and protects itself first. It reacts only after the fire is already visible.

To improve, adapt, and innovate, the system needs people who can say, “This does not work.”

But in Putin’s Russia, saying “this does not work” is often more dangerous than letting it fail quietly.

That is why the air-defense system keeps failing.

Hesitant Hands

So who is supposed to shoot these drones down?

Russia has begun forming mobile fire groups in many regions. The men joining them are reservists, BARS units, volunteers, and local security service people. On top of that, private businesses have been allowed to buy heavy weapons, radar equipment, specialized vehicles, electronic warfare systems, and other tools to defend industrial sites from drones.

Private businesses in a military superpower are being told, in effect: buy your own protection.

That is a very large admission.

It means the state cannot fully protect the infrastructure it depends on. Instead, it pushes the burden downward: to regions, businesses, and improvised teams.

But to be effective, mobile groups need information from a larger network to know when a drone is coming. They need weapons, rules of engagement, and communication with other units.

And most of all, they need practice.

A drone at night is a small, moving target, sometimes barely visible. The team must decide quickly.

Ukraine’s mobile groups developed under constant attack. They learned because they had to learn. They are defending cities that are hit night after night. Mistakes are paid for immediately, and successful methods spread quickly.

Russia is trying to build this system after discovering that deep strikes are no longer an occasional embarrassment but a strategic campaign.

There is also the legal problem. If a mobile group damages a drone and it crashes into civilian property, who is responsible? If a team fires and misses, who answers for bullets or fragments?

These questions shape behavior. People who fear punishment or lack training will hesitate — just long enough for the drone to hit its target.

Ukraine faces the same danger. Air defense shoots down a drone, and debris falls. People can still die and property get destroyed from the thing that was stopped.

But Ukraine treats this as part of a national defense system, not as a reason to avoid acting.

When the alert comes, people are told to take shelter. Authorities warn residents not to film air-defense work, not to publish locations, and not to touch fallen debris. The State Emergency Service and police move in after the attack and cordon off dangerous objects to clear fragments, put out fires, and document damage.

Ukraine also has a compensation mechanism. Damaged housing can be reported through the eRecovery program in Diia, and local commissions assess claims.

Russia lacks this kind of procedure. There, the person making the decision often does not know whether the system will back him if something goes wrong. So he prefers not to do anything.

Another part of the problem is that many Russian civilians do not see drones as a threat. A typical picture: a drone buzzes across the sky over a Russian town, and locals step outside with phones and point upward. Someone laughs. Someone swears. Someone says, “There it goes.” They film the drone like a strange bird.

If a drone is downed and explodes not far from this filming crowd, there will be injuries and deaths that could be avoided if people scrambled for safety instead. But these people aren’t trained or instructed to do this. Knowing that civilians might be in the open, mobile groups prefer not to fire so they won’t accidentally kill anyone.

The Refinery War

Oil refineries are almost perfect drone targets.

They are large, fixed in place, and highly flammable. They are expensive and hard to repair. And once damaged, they affect not only the military, but ordinary life. A refinery is the place where crude oil becomes gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other products the country needs to move.

This is why Ukraine has focused so much attention on Russian oil infrastructure.

In June 2026, Ukrainian drones hit the Moscow oil refinery in Kapotnya, inside one of Russia’s most heavily defended airspace zones. And yet drones broke through and damaged key primary oil distillation units. Later reporting said the refinery could remain offline until at least the end of the year.

Think about the symbolism.

Moscow is the sacred center, the place where Russia spends whatever is needed to preserve the image of control. And still, drones reached a major refinery there.

For ordinary Russians, the effect of these strikes arrives as fuel lines. Gas shortages have spread from occupied Crimea into southern Russia and even Moscow.

Then Russia banned diesel exports until the end of July to protect domestic supply. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russia would begin importing fuel in July. I have a dedicated video about Russia’s ongoing fuel crisis and why it has no clean and fast solution.

But the main cause of the crisis is Russia’s broken air defense. And it isn’t going to get fixed any time soon.

In theory, the solution is clear.

Russia would need one national anti-drone network with radars, interceptor drones, mobile fire teams, emergency services, governors, and the military all connected into one system. A drone appears in one region, and the information must immediately move across the whole chain.

Then Russia would need clear priorities. You cannot protect everything equally, so the state must admit what comes first.

Then it needs cheap interception. You cannot spend a hugely expensive missile on every drone. You need trained mobile groups and clear rules for when they shoot.

Then it needs legal protection for those who act. If a mobile group hits a drone and debris damages a house, the state must say: you did your job, now emergency services and compensation mechanisms handle the damage. Without that, everyone hesitates.

And finally, it needs honest reporting. If a system fails, someone must be allowed to say: this failed, we need to come up with something better.

So why does Russia not do these simple things?

Because none of them are simple inside Putin’s system.

A unified network requires trust between agencies. Putin’s state is built on agencies spying on each other. Cheap innovation requires letting engineers, soldiers, volunteers, and local commanders experiment. The system prefers loyal contractors and controlled money flows. Legal protection requires the state to defend people who make risky decisions. In Russia, the state usually protects itself first.

And honest reporting is the hardest part of all because officials are too scared of losing their position if they displease a superior.

That is why drones keep finding the holes