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Ukraine’s air defense intercepted over 90% of drones in March

A member of a mobile fire group engages aerial targets against the backdrop of a sunset
Air defense maintains consistently high effectiveness against missiles and drones

Ukraine’s air defense continues to demonstrate consistently high effectiveness in countering large-scale enemy air attacks. In March 2026, the drone interception rate surpassed 90%, despite an increase in the number of attacks.

Last month, the enemy continued its tactic of wearing down Ukraine’s air defense, launching wave attacks and combining missile strikes and drone attacks.

Air defense performance in March

According to daily reports from the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, approximately 6,600 targets were detected in total during mass attacks. For comparison, in February, the enemy employed over 5,300 air attack assets.

In the past month, a total of 5,935 drones and missiles were neutralized, including:

  • Shahed-type drones and others: 6,463 launches recorded, 5,833 intercepted. The interception rate reached 90.25%.
  • Cruise and ballistic missiles: 138 launches recorded, 102 intercepted. The interception rate reached nearly 74%.

The overall interception effectiveness in March reached 89.9%.

Largest attacks in March

The highest intensity of enemy attack drone use was recorded on March 24, when nearly 1,000 drones were launched in a single day. Despite the record number of incoming threats, 94.6% of aerial targets were neutralized or forced down.

This was the largest attack since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

The largest missile attack occurred on March 14, during which 58 of the 68 missiles launched were intercepted. On the same day, the enemy launched 430 drones, of which over 400 were intercepted.

Notably, Ukraine’s War Plan sets the goal of identifying 100% of aerial threats in real time and intercepting at least 95% of missiles and drones.

Advancement toward this objective has been enabled by the integrated efforts of aviation, various air defense assets, and electronic warfare (EW) capabilities. This makes it possible not only to physically destroy targets, but also to disrupt their guidance and tracking, rendering them ineffective and conserving scarce interceptor missiles.

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