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09/09/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/09/2025 14:49
Russia’s Massed Strikes: The Strategy of Coercion by Salvo
Russia's Massed Strikes: The Strategy of Coercion by Salvo
Photo: Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images
Critical Questions by Benjamin Jensen and Yasir Atalan
Published September 9, 2025
Russia unleashed its largest aerial barrage of the war over the weekend of September 7-8, striking Kyiv and multiple regions across Ukraine in an unprecedented display of firepower. More than 800 munitions-primarily Shahed drones supported by a smaller number of cruise and ballistic missiles-were launched in coordinated waves, overwhelming air defense systems and inflicting widespread damage. The attack killed at least four civilians and set ablaze Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers building, marking the first time Russia directly targeted the government's seat of power. This strike, exceeding even the massive May assault in scope, highlights Moscow's continued reliance on a punishment campaign and using massed drone-missile saturation to coerce Ukraine and test Western resolve. It is Putin's preferred theory of victory and a substitute for a largely static frontline with little opportunity for an operational breakthrough by Russian ground forces.
Q1: What is Russia's salvo strategy?
A1: Russia's firepower strike campaign relies on two distinct patterns: routine strikes and salvos. Routine strikes involve the daily use of loitering munitions, keeping steady pressure on Ukraine. Salvos, by contrast, are larger, coordinated barrages with a different purpose. It signals a deliberate shift in tempo and sends a signal to Ukraine and its supporters: Russia is willing to escalate, overwhelm defenses, and exhaust resources. These massed salvo attacks are now a core feature of Moscow's coercive punishment campaign. What began as rare events early in the war has become regular practice. Large-scale salvos make up about 10 percent of all Russian aerial operations (see Table 1). The scale and frequency of large, coordinated salvos, which combine missiles, drones, and ballistic projectiles, have both increased. In 2022, a typical salvo involved about 100 weapons and occurred roughly once a month. By 2025, the average has tripled to nearly 370 munitions per salvos, with salvos now coming every eight days. What were once peak events are now baseline activity, defining a sustained punishment campaign.
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Benjamin Jensen
Director, Futures Lab and Senior Fellow, Defense and Security Department
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Yasir Atalan
Data Fellow, Futures Lab, Defense and Security Department
Programs & Projects
- Defense and Security
- Futures Lab
- Russian Firepower Strike Tracker: Analyzing Missile Attacks in Ukraine
Remote Visualization
Q2: How do negotiations impact salvo launches?
A2: Negotiations have a direct impact on Russia's salvo strategy. The data show that Moscow calibrates the scale and tempo of its strikes depending on the political environment. For example, in July 2025, Russia launched over 6,300 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and missiles, keeping up aerial intensity. Yet in August 2026, during active negotiation talks with President Trump, the number of aerial weapons fell dramatically to around 3,300. Russia sought to avoid dominating international headlines with massive salvos while talks were underway. The interval between salvos underscores this point as well. In August, the gap between major salvos stretched to 38 days (Figure 1), compared to the 2025 average of just 8.2 days.
During this larger interval, Russia could use the pause to rebuild its missile and drone inventory while sustaining only routine, low-intensity strikes. By avoiding salvos of over 300 munitions, Moscow reduced the risk of being seen as undermining the talks, preserving some flexibility in its coercive bargaining. Once the talks concluded, however, Russia quickly resumed large-scale operations. Indeed, it followed up with the largest aerial assault of the war last weekend, demonstrating that pauses in activity were tactical rather than structural.
Russia's strategy is not only about destroying infrastructure but also about shaping political outcomes. Russia times its escalations to influence negotiations, control headlines, and preserve leverage. In quieter periods, it sustains routine drone launches to keep pressure on Ukraine without drawing the same level of global scrutiny. This is not a novel strategy. As seen in the Vietnam War, even the United States has a history of using bombing campaigns, like Operation Linebacker in 1972, during peace negotiations. Moscow thus sees its salvos and punishment campaign as a key strategic lever to force concessions more than seek sustainable peace.
Remote Visualization
Q3: Are Russia's firepower strikes effective?
A3: The effectiveness of Russia's firepower strikes depends on the strategy. If it is measured purely by strike success rates, Russia's salvos appear inefficient. Around 85 percent of UAVs and missiles combined are intercepted, and Ukraine's air defense network remains resilient. But effectiveness cannot be judged by numbers alone. From a psychological and coercive standpoint, Russia's strategy has an impact. With intervals between large salvos shrinking to as little as two days, civilians in Kyiv and other major cities are exposed to nightly air raid sirens, explosions, and the stress of constant threat. The goal is not only destruction but also to wear down morale, exhaust defenders, and force Ukraine's backers to question the sustainability of support. Moscow's punishment campaign is a form of psychological warfare waged against both the citizens of Ukraine and capitals in Europe, signaling what happens when states challenge Putin's will.
More concerning, Russia appears to be learning. Shahed (Geran) drone launches, once largely ineffective with hit rates below 10 percent, are now penetrating at nearly 20 percent. This improvement is not because Ukraine's defenses are failing but because Russia is adapting its tactics. New swarming methods-such as overlapping flight paths and staggered launch waves-force defenders to spread thin and deplete interceptors more quickly. Upgraded Geran variants flying at higher altitudes also exploit radar gaps, straining Ukraine's layered defenses. This increase in effectiveness compounds the logic of drone saturation: The Shahed remains the most cost-effective weapon even if more than two-thirds are routinely shot down.
The result is compounding pressure. Even if only a fraction of drones and missiles get through, the constant pace, volume, and adaptation gradually overwhelm the shield. Russia is betting on quantity, persistence, and psychological strain to achieve what precision alone cannot. What began as rare, exceptional salvos has now become baseline activity-a grinding campaign designed to erode Ukraine's defenses, civilian resilience, and international will over time.
Q4: What can the West do?
A4: Allowing Ukraine to suffer nightly bombardment while conducting shuttle diplomacy is not an effective strategy. Any security guarantee for Ukraine must start with a significant increase in air defenses and even consider a new aerial policing mission and a no-fly zone to buy time and space for actual negotiations. Despite Putin's threats, he is unlikely to directly target NATO member states in Ukraine.
Ukraine provides battlefield lessons for other military powers. Drone saturation and firepower strikes are likely to remain enduring aspects of modern war for the next generation. Until cost-effective counters-from high-energy lasers to high-powered microwaves-prove stable and deployable, there will be a need to adapt existing approaches to layering air defense and better integrating them with theater-level intelligence systems.
For example, with the announcement that the Trump administration will reinterpret the Missile Technology Control Regime to allow drones to be sold as planes, the United States can proceed with selling long-endurance assets like the MQ-9 and RQ-4 to Ukraine, something the Biden administration failed to accomplish. Having enduring drones that can sit outside the threat ring and conduct missions ranging from supporting wide area surveillance using signals intelligence to even interdicting loitering munitions adds to Ukraine's defense.
In addition, testing new approaches like cannon-based air defense that connect to the larger battle network made possible by long endurance unmanned aircraft and existing novel solutions like acoustic networks creates a more layered and mobile defense. Ukraine has already demonstrated its ability to conduct AI-enabled anti-aircraft fire. With cannon-based solutions, it can augment this further with smart flak that better times when to detonate and disrupt incoming drone swarms. Combined, these efforts-better airborne intelligence for tipping and queuing alongside cheaper and mobile air defense-challenge the salvo's theory of victory: cost-effective mass. Ukraine offers the United States and its NATO partners a critical opportunity to develop counters to Russian firepower strikes they can adapt to deter future Russian offensive campaigns elsewhere on the continent and teach to other frontline democracies like Taiwan.
Benjamin Jensen is the director of the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Yasir Atalan is a data fellow in the Futures Lab at CSIS.
Critical Questions is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
© 2025 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.
Tags
NATO, Defense and Security, Economic Security, Geopolitics and International Security, and Ukraine WarRelated Content
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CSIS - Center for Strategic and International Studies Inc. published this content on September 09, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on September 09, 2025 at 20:50 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]