Ukraine’s army has held its own against the invading Russians with heroic success for more than four years, but the one place where the two forces have a vast mismatch is with missiles.

Russia is continuing to expand and modernise its missile programme despite western sanctions, with the emergence of a new strike weapon underlining Moscow’s ability to sustain and adapt its long-range attack capabilities after the whole Russian economy was put on a war footing in the very first months of the conflict. By contrast, Ukraine had no missile production capabilities to speak of and has only developed its first long-range cruise missiles in the last year.

Russia just rolled out yet a new missile: a hybrid between a powerful drone and scaled down cheap cruise missile. Ukrainian military officials and open-source analysts identified a new Russian weapon known as the “Banderol” that just appeared on the Ukrainian battlefield.

It is described as a jet-powered strike drone or light cruise missile designed for precision attacks at higher speeds than the Iranian-designed Shahed drones widely used by Moscow.

The missile is similar to the kinds of drones Iran produces and Moscow and Tehran appear to be increasingly trading technologies. Russia’s drones are based on an Iranian design but last year Tehran and Moscow did a technology transfer deal and Russia set up its own drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan. It has since then invested heavily in both production and development and moved beyond the Iranian design producing more advanced models like the Geran-5. However, it seems the flow of technology development is flowing the other way too.

The Ukrainian conflict has been dominated by cheap and small FPV drones that target infantry and both Russia and Ukraine produce around two million of these missiles a year. Iran, however, specialises in bigger, more powerful and more complicated drones that are more like “cheap cruise missiles,” according to IntelliNews’ military analyst Patricia Marins and only produce around 150,000 a year.

The appearance of the system comes as Russia sharply increases overall missile production, raising concerns among western officials that the Kremlin is building a sustainable wartime strike complex capable of replenishing stocks faster than Ukraine and its allies can deplete them. Europe in particular has just launched the Drone Alliance to counter the Russian threat and accelerate its own development and production of drones.

The EC has officially announced a competition to select the founding members of the new EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance, but it is still on square one. The initiative stems from President Ursula von der Leyen’s 2025 address and the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 and the Commission’s Security Action Plan.

Founding members will be selected from among candidates with practical experience in the defence drone sector. The elected representatives will form the first EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance Council and define its strategic priorities. Applications for participation will be accepted until 25 May, and the drone alliance's full launch is planned for the coming months.

The alliance will have its work cut out to catch up with Russia. According to Ukrainian intelligence and western defence analysts, Russia is expected to manufacture several thousand long-range missiles in 2025 and 2026, including cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and air-launched systems. Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said earlier this year that Russia had significantly expanded monthly production of Iskander ballistic missiles and Kh-101 cruise missiles compared with pre-war levels.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimated that Russia had rebuilt much of its missile manufacturing capacity despite export controls, aided by sanctions evasion networks and increasingly relies on easy to get Chinese components.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered a large-scale expansion of arms manufacturing facilities and longer operating schedules at missile plants. State-owned defence conglomerate Rostec has previously said output of some precision-guided weapons had increased severalfold since the invasion began and Russia is on course to make some 2,000 missiles this year – enough to fire five a day every day of the year.

The imbalance has become increasingly visible in Ukraine’s own missile sector. Kyiv has accelerated domestic weapons development programmes and backed private manufacturers such as Fire Point, the maker of the Flamingo cruise missile, and other emerging defence technology groups producing strike drones and missile systems.

However, Ukrainian production remains limited relative to Russia’s industrial scale. Fire Point claims it is ramping up missile production, but so far the reports of its use are limited to less than a dozen. The new missile has not been the game changer it was billed as.

Industry officials and analysts say Ukraine’s indigenous missile output is currently measured in the hundreds of units annually, far below Russia’s projected capacity. Ukraine remains almost completely dependent on western-supplied air defence systems and long-range weapons as Russia continues near-nightly missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

Russia’s missile stockpiles and production capacity, shared by Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR) with NV