Insufficient training is partly to blame for the reduced effectiveness of Ukraine’s air defenses, military insiders say.
While Russia more than doubled its drone and missile strikes last year, Ukrainians’ interception rate fell from 96.58% in January 2025 to 82.7% in December, according to the Institute for Science and International Security.
There are multiple reasons for this decline, from better drones and tactics on the Russian side, to equipment and personnel shortages on the Ukrainian side. But training is an important reason that often goes overlooked.
Lack of training time prevents mobilized personnel from mastering air defense systems, Taras Chmut, a Ukrainian veteran and head of the Come Back Alive fund, told Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi in an interview.
“If you don't know how, you need to be properly taught. If learning requires 10 days, and you have two, you will get trained so-so,” Chmut said. “It’s like that everywhere.”
He added that if warfighters of all stripes don’t understand their equipment, it won’t be effective when it counts, no matter how well this equipment performs on a proving ground.
"In ideal conditions, the product lives up to its tech specs. But you have to get down to reality — to the people — and not make a product that’s only good when it’s in good hands,” Chmut told Militarnyi. “There are no good hands anymore. That's it. You either design for reality or not at all.”
One senior master sergeant in the Ukrainian military, speaking on condition of anonymity, had similar things to say to Euromaidan Press. He served in an air defense unit and used to train Ukrainian soldiers.
Many military personnel serving in all kinds of roles get just two weeks of training, he pointed out — many testimonials back him up. As a result, troops are not prepared to face real-life battlefield conditions. That includes people in air defense units.
“You can't do that in two weeks, brother,” he said.
Strikes increased, interceptions decreased
The Russians went from 2,629 launches of Shahed-like drones in January to a peak of 6,297 launches in July. Since then, the number of launches has gradually decreased, hitting 5,131 in December, as the Institute for Science and International Security recorded.
Meanwhile, the percentage of successful hits has gone up, while the percentage of interceptions has gone down. The Institute calculated 90 successful hits in January and 886 in December. Since April, Ukraine’s interception percentage has never risen above the 80s.
There are many reasons for these trends. The Russians have improved on their tactics. The numbers consume Ukraine’s limited anti-air munitions. The drones started flying faster, while continuing to pepper the mix with decoys. There have been many strikes on areas close to the front line, allowing for shorter flight times and efficient route planning.
Russia also started using more advanced navigation systems that resist Ukraine’s electronic warfare, and integrated cameras and modems that allow real-time adjustment of flight trajectories and evasive maneuvers.
The Russians achieved this in part by using Starlink on their drones. Ukraine’s defense ministry is fighting back by working with SpaceX to disable any Starlink account operating in the country that’s not on a government whitelist. This has disrupted Russian communications, sending the invaders scrambling for backup solutions.
Nevertheless, the Russian drones and missiles continue to fly. The people whose job is to shoot them down are often not fully prepared to do so.
“The results are worse”
Chmut told Militarnyi that this problem becomes apparent during weapons tests.
“A crew comes in from the factory, specialists who had been doing this their whole lives,” he said. “They sit there, shoot the target down with their eyes closed, and say: ‘cool, it works.’”
“And then an average armed forces crew comes in, who were mobilized yesterday from their lives as managers or electricians, and they're told 'repeat.' But they don’t succeed. Because of reaction time, because of knowledge, because of experience, because of everything. The results are worse.”
“Even though it’s the same training ground, on the same day, with the same equipment, and the same target.”
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The problem isn’t with the weapons or with the troops themselves. The troops can only perform well if they are sufficiently prepared, motivated, and are able to apply sound tactics.
Without these things, it doesn’t matter what equipment you give the troops, Chmut said: “nothing will happen.”
Insufficient training
However, the senior master sergeant told Euromaidan Press that the typical training environment in Ukraine isn’t good at developing motivation, teamwork, tactical depth, and good understanding of equipment.
The length of the training often depends on the brigade. Some units have fought to give their men a minimum of four weeks of training. In others, service members rarely get more than two weeks.
“Since the beginning of the war, I've always heard this: ‘we have no time, we have no time,’” he said. He attributed this to a lingering Soviet mentality within the Ukrainian armed forces — a willingness to sacrifice effectiveness in order to put more men on the battlefield faster.
“They just want to throw men out into the field,” he said. “I'm going to just train you into two disciplines. Loading, firing, you're a soldier now.”
On top of being too short, many training regimens often eschew battle theory and teambuilding, even though both are very important, the senior master sergeant said.
Moreover, training often stalls out, either because of its overly narrow focus, inconsistent instructors, or other reasons.
In one case, he said the troops being trained didn’t want to continue because they were afraid of being sent to the front lines — or poached by other units for their usefulness.
Uneven doctrine
Ukraine’s tactical choices have also played a role in air defense performance. In his Militarnyi interview, Chmut said that air defense crews on the ground sometimes don’t get cleared to shoot at Shaheds because friendly aircraft are in the sky, trying to bring down Russian cruise missiles.
As a result, the ground crews aren’t ordered to shoot, because cruise missiles are more destructive than drones, having the aircraft bring the missiles down is a priority, and the likelihood of friendly fire against Ukrainian planes is “quite high.”
“Therefore, first the fighter aircraft shoot down the cruise missiles, leave your area, then you continue to hunt Shaheds,” Chmut continued. In this situation, the crew isn’t to blame for failing to shoot down enemy targets.
The senior master sergeant said that while Ukraine has different layers of air defense, they do not work together as well as they could. “Communication's a big problem.”
“Multi-layer air defence is difficult not because the idea is flawed, but because doctrine remains uneven, resources are fragmented, threats evolve rapidly, and integration between layers is incomplete,” he said. “The tools exist. The orchestration must follow.”
