Inside Ukraine’s battle for the skies as Russian bombardments hit records

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. POLTAVA, Ukraine—A team of soldiers sat inside a nondescript red bus with their eyes glued to a bank of screens blinking with yellow dots. The shapes represented Russian drones, missiles and planes cutting into Ukrainian skies.

Soldiers from Ukraine’s 164th Radiotechnical Brigade were trying to quickly identify targets and intercept them before they could sow destruction in towns and cities. In recent months, the number of dots on the screens has mushroomed, with Russia’s stocks bolstered by a new drone factory and North Korean ordnance. Russia fired more than 6,000 explosive drones and missiles against Ukraine over September, October and November, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of daily data from the Ukrainian Air Force Command.

That was over three times the number it fired over the previous three months, and more than four times the number fired during the same fall months in 2023. Russia is using an unprecedented number of Iranian-designed Shahed drones, and it is using more ballistic missiles, which are harder to intercept. One of Moscow’s new tactics is to fly fleets of cheap decoy drones to exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses.

It is using thermobaric warheads and radar-evading missiles. “The point is to exhaust the air defense capabilities," said Maj. Anton Yanovych, the commander of the 164th.

He said there are days when he sleeps less than two hours. His bus is equipped with a shower, a kitchen, bunk beds and a fridge to make operators comfortable as they keep constant watch. Ukraine is scrambling to counter the attacks with increased use of electronic warfare jamming techniques, but the soldiers are struggling.