Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s threats to disrupt civilian air travel in Russia are most likely aimed primarily at Moscow’s aviation hub, which comprises four airports. Ukraine does not have enough drones to employ such tactics across the entire country, according to military expert Valery Shiryaev.

In his assessment, Ukrainian forces would have to send drones toward each of Moscow’s four airports every day to continuously disrupt their operations and trigger repeated Carpet emergency plans. However, because Russian air defenses destroy the vast majority of Ukrainian drones, such a campaign would require an enormous number of UAVs.

Shiryaev linked this to Zelenskyy’s statement that Ukraine needs to produce 30,000 drones per month, which would make it possible to launch roughly 1,000 UAVs a day. The expert believes Ukraine’s ability to sustain a prolonged effort to shut down Moscow’s aviation hub would depend in part on whether its industry can maintain such production volumes.

According to Shiryaev, Ukraine has already tested this tactic this year by sending drones toward airport areas to determine whether their operations could be disrupted. At the same time, he expects Russian air defenses to be better prepared for such attacks in the future.

Ultimately, Shiryaev believes the effectiveness of such a campaign would depend on the air defense network Russia has established to protect Moscow’s aviation hub and on how many Ukrainian drones are able to penetrate it. He ruled out the possibility of disrupting civilian air travel across all of Russia in this way, arguing that the four Moscow airports would be the primary potential target.