Russian forces likely accumulated ballistic and cruise missiles throughout September to conduct several separate large-scale drone and missile strikes across Ukraine. This is stated in a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), as reported by UNN.
Details
It is noted that Russia irregularly launches missiles as part of night strike packages against Ukraine and often goes several days without using missiles in these packages.
Russian forces appear to be accumulating ballistic and cruise missiles almost daily and then launching a large number of missiles along with a large number of drones, which would likely overwhelm Ukrainian air defense systems.
They note that Russian forces conducted only four night strikes involving more than 10 missiles in September 2025 and launched one night strike involving more than 40 missiles approximately every two weeks since late August 2025, highlighting Russia's recent trend of periodically conducting several large combined strikes between smaller drone strikes.
Russian forces continue to use more cruise missiles and fewer ballistic missiles in combined strikes and likely continue to rely on ballistic missiles for pinpoint strikes on specific targets while using drones and cruise missiles to overcome Ukrainian air defenses.
They state that Ukrainian Patriot air defense systems remain Ukraine's only air defense systems capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles, and Russian forces may be deliberately targeting cities and energy infrastructure not actively defended by Ukrainian Patriot systems to increase the chances of Russia successfully hitting targets.
Recall
Earlier, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that in September, Russia used almost 6,900 drones, including over 3,600 "Shaheds," against Ukraine. According to him, to counter this, a Command of Unmanned Air Defense Systems is being formed, and crews of interceptor drones are being increased.