The price of Ukraine’s retaliatory drone strikes

Hello! Welcome to your weekly guide to the Russian economy, written by Alexandra Prokopenko and Alexander Kolyandr and brought to you by The Bell. Ahead of a Victory Day parade that has been slimmed down under the threat of Ukrainian drones, we look at the economic costs of Kyiv’s intensifying air campaign against Russian energy sites.

Losses mount from Ukrainian strikes

Moscow’s traditional May 9 military parade will be scaled back for the first time in 18 years. Columns of military hardware will be absent from the capital, and many regions have cancelled celebrations altogether. In an attempt to head off any threat to the festivities, the Kremlin announced a unilateral ceasefire with Ukraine for May 8-9, vowed to launch “a massive retaliatory strike on downtown Kyiv” if Ukraine fired on the parade, and warned foreign embassies to evacuate their staff from the Ukrainian capital. This all proves that in the fifth year of its war, the Russian military cannot even guarantee the safety of the skies over Moscow, never mind the rest of the country. The economic cost of this helplessness is adding up, with the bill falling on Russian business.