The data classifies almost all one-way attack drones launched by Russia against Ukraine as “Shahed-136/131”. Russia has acceleration of national production Shahed type drones, cheaper and easier to produce than conventional missiles. But Shaheds could be cheap without being profitable. The data we analyzed showed that around 90% of the Shaheds were intercepted or failed to hit their targets. For comparison, the data showed Russian missiles as the ground-launched missile. Iskander-M and launched by air Kh-22 achieving their goals 89.9 percent and 94.6 percent of the time, respectively.
If Ukraine were to use expensive missiles to shoot down cheap drones, there is no doubt that Russia is on the favorable side of the cost-exchange ratio. But Ukraine has many means to defend itself against the Shaheds. Some, like shooting them down with heavy machine guns or knocking them off course by spoofing their satellite navigation, are relatively inexpensive. As the data was not precise enough for cost exchange calculations, we calculated the cost per target hit. The most difficult part was estimating the unit costs of Shahed and other Russian munitions.
Cost estimate
It is difficult to know precisely the unit cost of Russian drones of the Shahed type, which Russia manufactures in its country under the name “Géran-2.” An Israeli missile expert, writing in January 2023, estimated only $20,000 to $30,000 by drone. Later, a British analyst compared this figure to $80,000based on his personal inspection, in October 2022, of components of a captured Shahed-136. Forbes Ukraine used $50,000 by Shahed to calculate the cost of Russian attacks. But all these estimates come from observations made at the start of the war.
At the start of 2024, Russia had large-scale domestic production Shaheds, using workers from Africa and components from China. Russia seemed to favor quantity over quality. For example, in a Shahed that the Ukrainians shot down in October, they found the engine simplified to the essentialswithout even a starter or a flywheel.
Considering how Russia produces these drones, the lower cost estimates are realistic. Nonetheless, for our calculations, we used a conservatively high unit cost of $35,000, the midpoint between the lowest cost estimate and the more often cited $50,000.
While the cost is reliable estimates American missiles are publicly available, but reliable estimates of Russian missile costs are not. For the Kh-22, Kh-47And Kh-59we used the estimates published by Forbes Ukrainewhich were cited by News week And Kyiv Post. For the Iskander And Caliberwe used the estimates published by another Ukrainian media, Defense Expressoften cited by BBC Ukraine. (Defense Express had argued convincingly that the Forbes Ukraine cost estimates for these two missiles were too high.) For S-300/S-400 surface-to-air missiles, reused for ground attacks, we used the midpoint of cost estimates published by the Missile Defense Alliance and Ukraine Economichna Pravda.
Results
As the table below shows, precision bombing with Shahed-type drones costs Russia approximately $350,000 per target hit. This compares to about $1 million per target hit for their most profitable missile, which data suggests may be the Kh-22 air-to-ground cruise missile. The next candidate, at first glance, is the S-300/400 missile. But data shows that these missiles are mainly used in short-range attacks, less than 150 km. Additionally, according to the CSIS Missile Defense Program, they are inaccurate for ground attack.
To put these numbers in perspectivea Patriot interceptor (PAC-3) costs over $3 million while a NASAM (AIM 9-X variant) costs just over $1 million. This means that firing a NASAM to intercept a cruise missile (Kh-22 or Kh-59) is cost effective. Using it against a one-way attack drone results in a significant loss of value (over $600,000 per interceptor). These figures are combined when taking into account the time required to produce modern Western interceptors and limited number of production lines compared to the relative ease with which Moscow has found adapting its factories to mass produce unidirectional attack drones. Although the United States has increase in production AIM-9X by 18 percent (137 produced per month) and PAC-3 by 116 percent (48 per month), it is still on the wrong side of the cost curve, according to information provided by Ukraine.
