A drone attack on a city is different from a conventional bombing run.
In the autumn of 2022, Russia turned to a weapon both ancient in concept and modern in form — the expendable, unmanned kamikaze drone, supplied by Iran — to wage a campaign not against Ukraine's armies, but against its lights, its water, and its warmth. Within a fortnight, two coordinated waves struck the infrastructure that sustains civilian life, forcing a country already at war to fight on a second front: the survival of its own people through winter. The question defence analysts like Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn were urgently asking was not whether Ukraine could endure, but whether the right tools could reach it in time.
- Within fourteen days, Russia launched two mass drone strikes using Iranian-made loitering munitions, hitting power plants and water systems across Ukraine with deliberate, destabilizing effect.
- The attacks carried a dual terror — physical destruction of essential infrastructure and the psychological dread of that distinctive buzzing sound arriving before the impact, before the darkness, before the silence.
- Ukraine's air defences were being stretched to a breaking point, forced into an asymmetric trap: spending costly defensive resources to intercept drones that were cheap to produce and even cheaper to lose.
- Defence analyst Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn identified a critical gap between what Ukraine needed to counter the threat and what Western allies had yet to deliver, with compatible air defence systems available in principle but stalled by politics and logistics.
- With winter approaching, every downed power station meant hospitals on generators and families without heat — the humanitarian cost of the drone campaign was compounding by the day.
By mid-October 2022, Russia had launched two waves of drone strikes against Ukraine within a single fortnight. The weapons were Iranian-made — unmanned aircraft built not for recovery but for impact, trading sophistication for scale and cost. Dozens were deployed in coordinated attacks, and they were finding their marks in the places a city cannot survive without: power plants, water treatment facilities, the quiet systems that keep civilian life intact.
These were not strikes aimed at soldiers or military hardware. They were aimed at morale and endurance. What made them particularly unsettling was the sequence they imposed — the audible buzz of approach, the impact, then the cascading silence of power failing and water stopping. Repeated across a country, that sequence becomes its own form of warfare.
Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, had been closely tracking both the mechanics of the campaign and Ukraine's capacity to respond. Her analysis identified a clear asymmetry at the heart of Russia's strategy: the drones were cheap to launch and required no recovery, while the air defence resources needed to intercept them were expensive and finite. Russia was deliberately forcing Ukraine to burn through costly defensive assets to stop inexpensive ones.
Countermeasures existed. Western allies held air defence systems that could, in principle, address the threat. But the gap between what was theoretically available and what was operationally in place inside Ukraine remained wide — a function of political hesitation, logistical complexity, and time. With winter closing in, that gap carried a human cost measured in hospitals running on backup power, water systems going dark, and civilians facing the cold without heat.
By mid-October 2022, Russia had unleashed two waves of drone strikes against Ukraine in the space of just fourteen days. The weapons were Iranian-made—unmanned aircraft designed to fly into their targets and detonate on impact, the kind of weapon that trades sophistication for simplicity and cost. Dozens of them had been launched in coordinated attacks, and they were finding their marks in the places that matter most to a functioning city: power plants, water treatment facilities, the infrastructure that keeps civilians alive.
These were not precision strikes in the military sense. The drones served a dual purpose, and both were effective. They damaged critical systems that Ukraine needed to survive the winter ahead. But they also terrified. A drone attack on a city is different from a conventional bombing run. There is the sound of it coming—a distinctive buzzing that gives people time to know what is happening before it happens. Then the impact. Then the silence of power going out, water stopping, heat disappearing. The psychological weight of that sequence, repeated across a country, is its own kind of weapon.
Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the defence program at the Center for a New American Security, had been tracking these developments closely. She understood both the mechanics of what Russia was doing and the constraints Ukraine faced in responding. The Iranian drones—often called "loitering munitions" in defence circles, though "kamikaze drone" captured the concept more plainly—were relatively cheap to produce and deploy. They required no pilot, no recovery. You launched them and they found their target or they didn't. From Russia's perspective, the calculus was straightforward: damage Ukrainian morale and infrastructure while forcing Ukraine to expend expensive air defence resources on inexpensive drones.
But there were ways to counter them. Air defence systems existed—some of them already in Ukrainian hands, others available from Western allies if the political will and logistics could align. The question was not whether Ukraine could defend itself, but whether it would have access to the right tools, in sufficient quantity, in time. Pettyjohn's analysis focused on this gap: what Ukraine needed, what was theoretically available, and what the practical obstacles were to getting defensive systems into the country and operational.
The stakes were not abstract. Every power plant that went offline meant hospitals running on generators, meant water pumping stations shutting down, meant people in the coming winter months without heat. The attacks were not aimed at military targets in any traditional sense. They were aimed at the civilian infrastructure that makes a country function. And they were working. Ukraine's air defence was stretched thin, forced to choose which targets to defend and which to let through. The drones kept coming, and the question of how to stop them was becoming urgent.
Notable Quotes
Russia has been using drones to strike power and water infrastructure, as well as terrify civilians— The Globe and Mail reporting
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why would Russia choose these particular drones—Iranian ones—instead of using their own air defence systems more directly?
Cost and attrition. A kamikaze drone is cheap to build and you don't need it back. Russia can launch dozens of them knowing some will get through, and even the ones that don't represent a bargain compared to what Ukraine has to spend to shoot them down.
So it's a war of economics as much as anything else?
Exactly. Ukraine has to use expensive air defence missiles to stop inexpensive drones. Over time, that math breaks Ukraine's ability to defend itself, even if they win every individual engagement.
And the targeting—power plants, water systems—that's not random?
No. It's designed to break civilian life. Without power and water, a city stops functioning. People get cold, get sick, lose faith that their government can protect them. It's terror through infrastructure.
What would actually stop this campaign?
Air defence systems that can handle the volume and the cost equation. But Ukraine doesn't have unlimited supplies, and getting more from allies takes time and political decisions that aren't always fast.