Russia’s own Defence Ministry reports describe a drone campaign reaching far beyond the border. From January through 31 October 2026, it claims to have “intercepted and destroyed” more than 106,000 Ukrainian drones over 54 Russian regions and the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas. That is Moscow’s count of drones it says it shot down, and even on those terms, the scale and acceleration are striking.
The October Surge
Kommersant’s compilation of the ministry’s daily reports puts October at 19,000 drones, the highest monthly figure so far this year. August’s previous peak was 18,200, and September stood at 14,700. The October total is more than 4,000 above September, according to the same Russian figures.
Vedomosti calculates an average of 355 reported shootdowns per day across the year. At the start of 2026, the daily average was 118. By October, it had reached 614, more than five times the early-year rate. Russia’s air defences are reporting the kind of nightly workload they were not reporting in January.
How Wide the Pressure Runs
The Kommersant map lists Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk at the top, with 690, 660 and 605 mentions of drone attacks in ministry reports respectively. Those are counts of mentions, not counts of drones. The border regions remain prominent, but the ministry’s own reporting now spans 54 regions and three seas.
Moscow can now describe the pattern only as a problem spreading well beyond the immediate frontier.
The largest reported waves usually came at night. The ministry counted 1,110 drones over 20 regions on the night of 20 September, 1,214 over 19 regions on the night of 29 October, and 1,043 over 19 regions the following night. The 29 October figure is the highest of those three attacks.
What the Numbers Do and Do Not Show
These figures come from the state prosecuting the invasion, and its claim to have destroyed a drone says nothing by itself about what else got through. What its reports do establish is the burden it acknowledges:
- A sharply rising volume of Ukrainian drones
- A spread across much of Russia, not just border oblasts
- October setting a new monthly record
- A daily average more than five times the January rate