The campaign has become “a series of tactical successes for the Kremlin and a strategic failure of allied air defence”, the IISS said. Europe’s entire architecture of air defence has for decades been built around detecting and defeating planes and missiles. A pioneer of drone warfare in Ukraine said the actual reconnaissance data is irrelevant in comparison with the panic and political stupor Russian drone sightings create. Romanenko singled out one of the largest incidents that involved Russian drones over a NATO member state. Only two drones were shot down while Ukrainian air defences downed 500 Russian drones that day, he said.