ANALYSIS: 40 Sirens Every Day for Ukrainians from Russian Rocket Risk

Ukrainians have endured nearly 7,000 air raid alarms during 2023 or some 40 per day across the country.

The shocking number of sirens sounding in Ukraine’s cities and villages, in response to the threat of Russian missile, drone and plane attacks is revealed on the dedicated website, Air.alarms.in.ua, that has been collecting data since the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Statistics compiled by the site show that nationally there has been a total of 6,807 alerts thus far in 2023. This means that, somewhere in the country, an air raid alert siren is going off about twice an hour.

The areas of Ukraine where sirens have most often sounded so far this year are Donetsk, 1,141 times; Zaporizhzhia, 681; and Kharkiv, 677.

Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, has had some 380 alerts or about twice per day in 2023, thus far.

During May, Kyiv’s "month of missile madness," there were 106 air raid sirens, an average of more than three a day. That was more than double the number of air raid alerts that the capital was subjected to in April, when there was a total of 46.

On a national basis, Monday afternoon is statistically the day of the week and time when sirens are most likely to sound. 

Since the start of the war, there have been a total of 26,129 instances of air raid sirens. While the rate of air raid sirens for 2023 is lower than in the first year of the full-scale war, this most likely indicates that Ukraine’s detection systems have become smarter rather than any let up in Russia’s missile "war of attrition."

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In terms of announcements about actual bombings and explosions by texts, Telegram or other social media, the data gathering site reports that there have been around 2,700 in 2023, an average of 16 per day across Ukraine.

Kherson, 1,231; Donetsk, 416; and Kharkiv, 292 are the regions of Ukraine where, in the first six months of 2023, announcements of explosions have occurred the most.

In the case of Kherson, where shelling by Russian forces from the occupied left bank of the Dnipro has been a daily reality throughout 2023, there have been some 7.5 warning announcements per day, or nearly 1 every 3 hours.

The Air.alarms.in.ua site reports that there has been a total of 4,915 announcements of bombings or explosions, or about 10 per day across the country, since the start of the full-scale invasion. Again, the year-to-date figures for 2023 are lower, which further reflects a period of "war by attrition."