Despite Trump peace calls, Russian attacks on Ukraine have been double since the inauguration

Russia has more than doubled the number of drones and missiles from Ukraine since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, an BBC verification analysis discovered, despite his calls to a cease-fire.

The attacks had already increased under former president Joe Biden in 2024, but climbed strongly after Trump’s electoral victory in November. Since its return to functions in January, the recorded air attacks in Moscow have reached their highest level of war.

Throughout his campaign, Trump promised to end the fighting in one day if he had returned to power. He said during his campaign in 2024 that the Ukraine’s large -scale invasion by Russia could have been avoided if a president who had “respected” the Kremlin had held his duties.

However, in his efforts to make a cease-fire, he was sometimes accused of promoting Russia by criticism, and his administration interrupted the deliveries of air defense ammunition and other military supplies to Ukraine twice.

The breaks – announced in March and July and since reversed by the president – came while Russia regularly increased missiles and drones. According to Ukrainian military intelligence, the construction of ballistic missiles in Russia has increased by 66% in the past year.

The data examined by the BBC Verify – on the basis of daily incident reports published by the Ukrainian Air Force – showed that Russia had launched 27,158 ammunition between January 20 – when Trump’s presidency began – and July 19, against 11,614 in the last six months of the term of Biden.

“This brutal war was provoked by the incompetence of Joe Biden, and it lasted for too long,” said the assistant press secretary of the White House, Anna Kelly, in a press release at the BBC verification.

“President Trump wants to stop murder, which is why he sells American manufacturing weapons to NATO members and threatening Putin with prices and biting sanctions if he does not accept a cease-fire.”

During the first weeks of the new administration, the White House published a series of warm statements apparently intended to attract President Vladimir Putin to a regulation. During this period, Russian attacks against Ukraine have briefly dropped compared to the last weeks of the Biden administration.

But in February, when the American diplomats led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio met the delegation of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, for a summit in Riyadh, attacks had started to climb again.

The talks, which, according to Rubio, were a starting point to end the war, were followed by mediated discussions between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Türkiye.

The attacks culminated at the beginning of last month, when Moscow launched 748 drones and missiles to Ukraine on July 9, according to Ukrainian Air Force data. More than a dozen people were reportedly injured by the dam and two were killed.

While Trump expressed his anger at the climbing of Russian attacks on several occasions, his growing frustration does not seem to have had an impact on Moscow’s strategy.

On May 25, Russia launched its damaged dam then the greatest, which prompted Trump to ask angry: “What happened to him (Putin)?”

Since then, Russia has exceeded this number of launches reported 14 times. Trump replied by demanding that the Kremlin will reach a peace agreement with Ukraine on August 8.

The number of Russian ammunition entering the Ukrainian air defenses seems to increase, the explosions around the capital kyiv becoming a daily part of life for the city residents.

“Whenever you fall asleep, you don’t know if you are going to wake up the next morning, and it is simply not a normal way of living,” said Dasha Volk, a journalist living in the city, on the Ukrainecast program of the BBC in June.

“Whenever you hear an explosion or a missile flying above your head, many thoughts cross my mind – I’m going to die now, things like that.”

Senator Chris Coons, a senior democrat of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the BBC verified that Trump’s decision to suspend arms supplies twice and his broader approach to Russian relations would have convinced the Kremlin that he had the freedom to increase the attacks.

“It is clear that Putin feels embraced by Trump’s weakness and has increased his vicious assault on the Ukrainian people, on several occasions hospitals and maternity, the Ukrainian electricity network and other civil sites,” he said.

The growing attacks have renewed calls to the United States to send new supplies of patriotic anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine. Patriots are the most capable and costly air defense systems in Ukraine. Each Patriot battery costs around 1 billion dollars (800 million pounds sterling), and each missile costs nearly $ 4 million.

Trump canceled the breaks of the previous offer and agreed to sell weapons to NATO members, who will provide them in kyiv. Trump seemed to imply that the agreement would include new supplies of patriotic batteries.

Justin Bronk, an analyst focused on the Russian army at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the restrictions on the supply of military equipment imposed by the White House had returned “vulnerable” to missile and drone attacks.

But he also noted that Russia had increased the production of missiles and so-called “suicide bomber” drones such as the Geran-2-a version produced in the country of Iranian drone Shahed. Bronk said Russia’s increased stocks, coupled with “important reductions” for the supply of American interceptor missiles, had encouraged Moscow to degenerate his air campaign.

The Ukraine Military Intelligence Agency (HUR) recently told domestic media that Russia now produced up to 85 ballistic missiles per month, compared to 44 in April 2024.

Russia would produce 170 geran drones per day, having established a huge manufacturing plant in Alabuga in the south of the country.

In a recent interview with Russian military television, the director of the establishment Timur Shagivaleyev has boasted that Alabuga had become “the largest combat drone production plant”, adding that its workers produced nine times more units than expected.

Satellite images show that the installation has developed considerably since mid-2024, with a number of new warehouses built on the site.

Other structures, including what seems to be extensions to workers’ dormitories, remain under construction.

Senator Coons warned that the increase in production meant that Washington must clearly indicate that he does not prepare to move away from the conflict because some administration officials threatened that he could do, stressing that peace can only be achieved thanks to “security aid”.

He added that President Trump must clearly indicate in Russia that he “cannot just try to survive the West”.

“To do this, he must maintain a coherent and supported position on war.”

Meanwhile, Ms. Volk said that the Russian campaign was walking and that Ukrainian interceptions of the fall are hammered every day.

“People get tired because of these attacks, they really affect our lives,” she said.

“We know what we are fighting for, but it becomes more difficult every year because everyone is exhausted. It is reality.”