If those shaheds cost $20,000 which is low balling the cost than that Gepard just eliminated $340,000 worth of drones.
The cost quickly balloons from there for russia as the cost per flying bomb/shahed goes up from having to make them more sophisticated and capable of flying higher to penetrate Ukrainian defenses.
The idea that mass flying bomb attacks are more cost efficient than other types of attacks or that there is no way a defender can’t affordably chew through mass flying bomb attacks with expensive equipment in an affordable way is not really true, under certain conditions it is but under others this is the least efficient strategy possible.
I think we/I have some confusion about which cost effectiveness we’re talking about. Your comment is about the cost effectiveness of (Ukraine’s) drone defense, where the defense costs are lower than the attack costs. Ukraine is doing really well on that front to the point that they’re selling tech to other countries.
My comment was about the viability/cost effectiveness of Russian drone launches. For that calculation they need a drone launch price < target value + air defense cost. Since targets tend to be quite valuable, it’s not too hard to make it cost effective, although not necessarily more cost effective than other means.