Ukraine War in Data: After U.S.-Russia drone incident, a look inside the drone wars

Drones have become crucial elements in the war — for surveillance and combat both.

The encounter in the skies over the Black Sea between a pair of Russian jets and a U.S. drone was a reminder of two critical facets of the war in Ukraine.

First, for all the fears of a NATO-Russia collision — a fear Grid raised on the day of the Russian invasion — more than a year of war passed before such a collision came. And when it did, it wasn’t clear how dangerous it might prove, in terms of a possible escalation. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held a rare call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in an effort to reduce tensions. “It’s important that great powers be models of transparency and communicaton,” Austin said, “and the U.S. will continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows.” The Russian defense ministry called the drone’s presence “provocative” for having entered airspace Moscow had declared restricted.

Meanwhile, the incident also serves as the latest reminder of the growing role that unmanned aerial vehicles — i.e., drones — are playing in the war. While the American drone that went down in the Black Sea was a highly sophisticated model flying outside the war zone, on any given day hundreds of drones may be found in the skies over Ukraine — from high-end vehicles to cheap models, engaged in surveillance or combat, or both.

Precise metrics on the drone war are hard to come by — but for this edition of our “War in Data” series, this collection of facts and figures:

Ukraine said recently it has committed to building an “Army of Drones” (one official asked for hundreds of thousands of what he called the war’s “super weapon”), and the latest U.S. aid package includes several versions of high-end drones, including the Jump 20 UAS, a tactical reconnaissance drone that will provide intelligence for HIMARS rocket launchers; the Altius 600, a tube-launched drone that can be launched from the ground, from vehicles or from aircraft; and the Switchblade 600, capable of attacking Russian positions with heavy munitions from as far as 25 miles away. The U.S. has pledged 700 Switchblades to date.
In January, top Ukrainian commander Gen. Valerii Zaluzhny ordered the army to create 60 companies to scale domestic production of drones. Currently, officials said Ukrainian firms make only 10 percent of the drones the country needs for the war.
Both sides in the war have used what are known variously as loitering munitions, “kamikaze” or “suicide” drones. As their names suggest, these are self-destructing devices that hover over targets before striking. The U.S.-made Switchblade and Phoenix Ghost models are in this category; so are Russian-made Lancet-3 drones. But in recent months, the Russians have relied heavily on the Iranian-made Shahed-136, which looks more like a small plane. The Shaheds cost $10,000 to $20,000 each and have a range of more than 900 miles. As Grid reported in January, Shaheds caused significant damage to infrastructure when they were first deployed in September, but the Ukrainians have gotten better at picking them out of the sky. Ukraine’s air defenses claimed a 100 percent success rate against more than 80 Shaheds that flew into Ukrainian territory over the New Year’s weekend.
Other drones fly longer distances — more than 100 miles — and are often armed with laser-guided missiles. The famous example in Ukraine has been the Turkish-produced Bayraktar TB2. The Ukrainian military has acquired several dozen TB2s, at a cost of about $5 million each. (The Bayraktar TB2 inspired a Ukrainian rap song that went viral in the war’s early days).
Meanwhile, the drone the U.S. lost over the Black Sea — the MQ-9 Reaper — is at the very high-performance end of the drone spectrum. The MQ-9 can fly at 50,000 feet and carry Hellfire missiles and highly sophisticated surveillance equipment. Price tag: $32 million.
At the other end of that spectrum, in the do-it-yourself category, tech-savvy Ukrainian civilians have built simple drones from commercially available kits. The more enterprising builders have added cameras and explosives. These tend to fly at low altitudes and travel limited distance. The price varies — but a good model can be had for approximately $2,000.

We offer a comprehensive set of data points on the war in Ukraine below. Grid originally published this document on March 24, the one-month anniversary of the war. We update it every Thursday to provide a fuller picture of the conflict.

Civilians killed: at least 8,200 (probably thousands more)

On June 7, a Ukrainian official said at least 40,000 Ukrainian civilians had been killed or wounded since the war began. The official offered no breakdown of dead versus wounded civilians. The United Nations’ latest estimate of civilians killed is more than 8,200, but it consistently notes the figure is an underestimate, as is its estimate of total casualties — a combination of deaths and injuries — given as almost 22,000. (Updated March 15; source, source, source.)

Ukrainian soldiers killed: at least 13,000

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, estimated in early December that as many as 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the war began. In early November, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, estimated that each side had seen about 100,000 soldiers killed or injured. According to the Washington Post, an anonymous German official estimates that up to 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers could have been wounded or killed since February 2022. (Updated March 15; source, source.)

Russian soldiers killed: between 5,937 and 161,000

From the early days of the war, casualty counts for Russian soldiers have varied widely — depending on the source. Ukraine raised its estimate of Russian soldiers killed in the conflict to more than 161,000 on Wednesday. These numbers have been updated frequently through the Facebook page for the country’s General Staff of the Armed Forces. In its first update on casualties since March, Russia claimed in late September that there had been 5,937 Russian military deaths. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in April that there had been “significant losses of troops, and it’s a huge tragedy for us.”

A report by Meduza, an independent Russian media outlet, and the Russian branch of the BBC confirmed at least 10,000 dead Russian soldiers as of Dec. 9, 2022. More recently, a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that between 60,000 and 70,000 Russian troops were killed between February 2022 and February 2023.

Russia has also suffered a high rate of casualties among senior officers. Thirteen Russian generals have been killed, according to Ukrainian authorities; the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency puts the figure at eight to 10. Grid’s Tom Nagorski and Keating previously reported on the possible explanations for this “inconceivable” toll: poor communications and command-and-control structures within the Russian military. (Updated March 15; source.)

Russians who have fled their country: at least 500,000

According to the Washington Post, at least 500,000 Russians have left Russia since the war began, but the number may be as high as 1 million. A significant number left immediately after the war began; another exodus followed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for a large-scale mobilization in September. In 2022, their main destinations were the neighboring countries of Georgia, Kazakhstan and Serbia — which have each received more than 100,000 Russians since the war began.

Total displaced Ukrainians: approximately 14 million

There are over 8 million Ukrainian refugees currently reported in other European countries. United Nations data indicates over 19 million Ukrainians have crossed the border since the start of the war, but millions have returned home, largely from Poland, as Nikhil Kumar and Kseniia Lisnycha reported. In late October last year, the International Organization for Migration’s latest survey of internally displaced Ukrainians found more Ukrainians returning home from within Ukraine, but an estimated 5.4 million remained displaced within their own country. (Updated March 15; source; source.)

Internally displaced Ukrainians: estimated 5.4 million

An overview of the violence

Recent Grid coverage

Learn more: Grid’s 360s on the Ukraine War

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Ukraine War in Data: After U.S.-Russia drone incident, a look inside the drone wars