Russia Issues Shotguns to Infantry Units as Emergency Defense Against Drone Attacks.

Russia is increasingly issuing shotguns and relying on standard infantry rifles to counter low-flying FPV drones in Ukraine, formalizing what began as a frontline improvisation. The shift underscores how inexpensive drones can overwhelm advanced air defenses and force armies into manpower-heavy, last-ditch solutions.

The drone war over Ukraine has pushed Russia into an uncomfortable truth that every modern army is now relearning: when small quadcopters and FPV strike drones arrive low, fast, and in numbers, air defense systems do not always operate successfully. Even the best radar-guided systems struggle with clutter, short warning times, and the simple arithmetic of saturation. That is why Russia is increasingly formalizing what began as a field improvisation, turning smoothbore shotguns and basic small arms into a “last meters” defensive layer that is cheap, mobile, and brutally simple.
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Russia is issuing modified MP-155 shotguns and relying on standard infantry rifles to bring down FPV drones at close range, reflecting how swarming low-altitude UAV attacks can slip past electronic warfare and short-range air defenses and force troops into a last-ditch, manpower-driven counter-drone layer (Picture source: Rostec).

Rostec has been unusually explicit about the rationale. In its Army-2024 communications on specialized cartridges, the state conglomerate acknowledged that mini drones have become a major threat and that standard countermeasures, including anti-aircraft missiles, are not always effective. The response is framed as a mix of miniature missiles, electronic warfare systems, and specialized ammunition, including small arms rounds. This message matters because it is an industrial admission that the engagement problem is not just technical but economic and tactical. Spending a high-end missile on a small UAV is often a losing exchange rate, and at the frontline, the engagement window can be measured in seconds rather than minutes.

Rostec has confirmed that IGLA 100 anti-drone cartridges, using shots made from a tungsten-nickel-iron alloy, are being delivered to Russian troops, with serial production of 12-gauge anti-drone ammunition underway since 2024. Alongside deliveries, Rostec describes structured training for servicemen, combining classroom instruction with live fire and comparative shooting against fast-moving aerial targets using specialized cartridges versus conventional lead shot and buckshot. The focus is pragmatic: teaching gunners how to break propellers, damage motors, and disrupt control components at short ranges, where reaction time and shot density matter more than precision marksmanship.

Kalashnikov’s role is the hardware bridge that turns ammunition into an infantry habit. The company has delivered the first batches of MP-155 self-loading shotguns modified specifically for drone defense. The anti-drone configuration includes a Picatinny rail on the receiver, a higher-capacity six-round magazine for 12x76 mm cartridges, and support for mounting both collimator sights and night-vision devices. The emphasis is clearly on rapid target acquisition and engagement in poor visibility, reflecting the reality that many drone attacks occur at dawn, dusk, or at night. Analysis by German defense outlet Hartpunkt places these deliveries in a broader pattern: Russia is attempting to standardize close-range counter-UAV tools, but distribution remains uneven, optics are not always present at the frontline, and training often resembles instinctive skeet-style shooting rather than a fully networked soldier system.

Rifles enter the picture not because they are ideal, but because they are always there. In practice, Russian units use standard-issue assault rifles and light machine guns whenever a drone penetrates electronic warfare and short-range air defense coverage. Kalashnikov-pattern 5.45 mm rifles, such as AK-74 variants and the newer AK-12, dominate, with 7.62 mm weapons and designated marksman rifles used opportunistically. The logic is availability and volume of fire rather than precision. Every soldier carries a rifle, which can be brought into action instantly, and it offers a marginally greater reach than a shotgun when a drone is just outside the effective shot spread.

Yet rifles are a compromised answer to a drone threat. A single bullet must intersect a small, fast, and often erratically maneuvering target with little time for lead calculation. Engagement ranges are short because identifying the drone, judging speed and angle, and correcting aim is extremely difficult under combat stress and in poor light. The natural response is to saturate the airspace with fire, which rapidly consumes ammunition, overheats barrels, and creates hazards from falling rounds and ricochets in dense trench environments. This limitation explains Rostec’s emphasis on specialized shotgun solutions: dense shot patterns, hardened projectiles, and visual feedback through tracers reduce the skill burden and improve first-shot lethality in the final engagement envelope.

At the system level, Russia’s counter-drone architecture remains layered in theory. Strategic air defense protects rear areas, frontline formations rely on a mix of electronic warfare, point-defense systems, and visual observers, and infantry units are left to deal with whatever leaks through. Rostec’s own framing of alternative kinetic systems alongside electronic warfare implicitly acknowledges persistent seams between these layers, especially against low-cost FPV drones deployed in numbers. The formalization of drone-defense shotgunners is, therefore, less a sign of technological ingenuity than a diagnostic. If troops must routinely shoot down drones with smoothbore weapons, it is an admission that higher layers cannot guarantee a reliable shield.

For NATO, the Russian trajectory offers both a warning and a lesson. The warning is that drone density will erode even sophisticated air defense networks at the tactical edge. The lesson is that cheap, human-operated, close-in layers will be demanded regardless of how advanced the upper tiers become. Russia’s push with the MP-155 shotgun and specialized ammunition is an industrialized return to fundamentals, and its necessity is perhaps the clearest evidence that no counter-UAV system in Ukraine, Russian or Ukrainian, is anywhere close to being foolproof.