Ukraine's intelligence: Russia produces around 170 Shahed drones daily, aims to increase output
As of May 2025, Russia has reached a daily production rate of approximately 170 Shahed loitering munitions and decoy drones, with plans to increase output to 190 per day by the end of the year, Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence (DIU) has reported.
Source: DIU, as reported by Mezha Media, a technology and IT news platform within Ukrainska Pravda's holding company
Details: The changes concern not only the quantity of these attack drones, but also their technology. DIU noted that the configuration of the Shahed drone has changed significantly between 2022 and 2025, with several major modifications introduced over the past year alone.
One such change involves a substantial upgrade to the warheads. In addition to the standard high-explosive and high-explosive fragmentation types, Shaheds can now be fitted with combined shaped-charge high-explosive fragmentation and shaped-charge high-explosive incendiary fragmentation warheads. These varying types are selected depending on the intended target to cause maximum damage.
Secondly, the explosive payload has increased from 50 to 90 kg. Thirdly, some drones are now equipped with Starlink terminals, allowing real-time remote control.
Furthermore, foreign journalists recently reported on the possibility of connecting Shaheds to the Ukrainian mobile network. The Economist claimed that Russian drones could be controlled via Telegram bots using Ukrainian SIM cards. However, Ukrainian military radio technology expert Serhii Flesh later refuted this claim.
The Shaheds have also evolved in terms of countering electronic warfare. Russian forces have begun protecting drone signal receivers with CRPA (controlled reception pattern antenna) systems, which can ignore fake satellite signals.
For reference: Russia first received hundreds of Shahed drones from Iran in 2022. By summer 2023, it began domestic production of these drones. The manufacturing facility is located 1,200 km from the front line, in the Alabuga special economic zone, in the city of Yelabuga. There, a localised version of the Iranian drone – named Geran-2 – is being produced.
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