How we analysed the increase in Russian launches against Ukraine since Trump’s returnpublished at 17:32 British Summer Time
17:32 BST
Ned Davies
BBC Verify analyst
Image source, Getty Images
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed shock at Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, at one point directly appealing to his Russian counterpart saying “Vladimir, stop!”.
We wanted to find out whether Trump’s words and actions have been followed by a reduction in the number of missiles and drones being launched by Moscow.
Petro Ivaniuk, an independent researcher, has been building a database detailing the type, timing and number of missiles launched based on information from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Analysing his data, we found Russia launched twice as many missiles after Trump took office in January compared with the previous six months. There was a brief slowdown in the number being fired when Trump said he wanted a peace deal early in his term.
Since May, the president has become more vocal in his criticism of Putin, but with June and July 2025 seeing the heaviest attacks on record, the president’s words don’t seem to be having an effect.
So what is driving it? Experts we spoke to said the increase is due to Russia’s growing production capacity. We dug into the data and found Shahed drones are now playing a dominant role. Satellite images showing a significant expansion of Shahed production facilities since mid-2024 support this.