Ukraine’s defense ministry said on Monday that its drone units had recorded attacks against over 800,000 Russian targets in the first half of 2026, roughly double last year’s rate.
The ministry said in a statement that these were strikes verified by Ukrainian units — a process that requires a drone team to submit video evidence to the country’s Delta battlefield-management system for review by analysts.
Ukraine’s military then allocates “ePoints” to units on an internal scoreboard, which they can use on the Brave1 marketplace to purchase additional equipment.
The tally released on Monday indicates that Ukraine is hitting targets at roughly double the rate from last year. In January, it said its forces recorded 819,737 video-confirmed drone strikes in all of 2025.
Ukrainian drone operators capped the first half of the year with 181,000 targets hit in May, the most out of any month so far in 2026, the ministry said.
Their targets included Russian soldiers, air defense systems, artillery and rocket systems, drones, civilian vehicles used as transport, headquarters and warehouses, and jammers, its statement said.
“In particular, about 167,000 Russian soldiers were killed or seriously wounded,” the ministry added. Business Insider could not independently verify Russia’s casualty rates, for which international analysts have offered differing counts.
One of the latest Western estimates, from the head of the UK’s GCHQ spy agency in May, put the Russian death toll for the entire war at half a million so far.
“Drones now account for over 90% of enemy casualties,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s defense minister.
The ministry didn’t specify what systems were used. Ukraine fields a growing suite of strike drone systems, including first-person-view quadcopters, uncrewed ground vehicles, interceptor drones, and long-range fixed-wing drones designed to fly hundreds of miles to bombard Russian territory.
The Brave1 marketplace, for example, lists about 800 types of FPV light strike drones and 185 types of interceptor drones for purchase.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on June 16 that his country is on track to produce 10 million drones in 2026, up from 4 million in 2025.
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