NORTHERN UKRAINE — Russia launched 948 Shahed and other strike drones against Ukraine within a 24-hour period ending Tuesday, marking a record for daily drone launches. The drone attacks were part of a combined strike on critical infrastructure facilities that also included about two dozen cruise and ballistic missiles.

The Ukrainian Air Force detected 948 Shahed and other strike drones during the 24-hour period and shot down or disabled 906 of them, achieving an interception rate of about 95.5 percent. Ukraine scrambled crewed aircraft, interceptor drones, jammers, and ground-based air defense systems to respond to the strike drone attack.

The attack began Monday evening when the Ukrainian Air Force detected 392 Russian fixed-wing long-range attack drones. The Ukrainian Air Force detected an additional 556 Russian strike drones before 6 p.m. local time the following day.

A large number of drones flew in from Chernihiv and Sumy regions in northern Ukraine. Some western and central regions of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, were also hit. The latest salvo on Tuesday included at least 42 Shahed drone hits and six missile strikes.

Russia's previous record for daily launches of Shahed-type and other strike drones was 728 in July 2025. The latest attack represents an escalation in the scale of drone operations.

Russia manufactures a localized version of the Iranian-designed Shahed drone and pairs its long-range loitering munitions with decoy drones called Gerberas to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses. The Italmas drone is a Russian fixed-wing drone similar in design to the Shahed, built from plywood to provide a lower-cost means of delivering an explosive warhead.

Over the past two years, Russia has increased production of its long-range attack drones, and some of these drones have been found to use Western-made electronics. In January, General Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces believed Russia planned to produce 1,000 Shahed drones in a single day.

Russian forces now send waves of Shahed drones in bursts, accumulating stockpiles for days before launching them together to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. In September 2025, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had launched roughly 810 long-range drones in a single wave, including about 400 Shaheds.