Ukraine’s cheap interceptor drones are rewriting the rules of war

About a year into Russia’s war, a Ukrainian drone instructor pitched what sounded like science fiction to troops: flying quadcopters through the air at Moscow’s reconnaissance planes.

The soldiers thought this was impossible. It would be very difficult to maneuver a quadcopter or small dronetoward another fast-moving target, they said. Yeti, co-owner of Drone Fight Club, a privately run combat drone school in Kiev, recalled them joking that he watched too much “Star Wars.”

What once seemed ridiculous has now become a cost-effective and critical pillar of Ukraine’s defense. As Russia launches ever-growing waves of explosive UAVs into its cities, Ukraine increasingly flies cheap interceptor drones to stop them. These weapons shot down 150 attack aircraft in a recent bombing raid. Ukraine currently aims to produce 1,000 interceptors per day.

The ripples of this technological breakthrough extend beyond Ukraine and show what future wars will look like. mass drone attacks It can be fought with cheap defenses.

NATO attracts attention. “Shoot to kill” interceptor drones are one of the most “promising” Solutions for European allies NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Admiral Pierre Vandier, responsible for modernization, said that it was for defense purposes against Russian unmanned aerial vehicles.

Business Insider interviewed Ukrainian people, including drone manufacturers, pilots and designers, about how interceptors went from a daring experiment to an experiment. highest defense priority.

“As the number of aerial drone threats has increased, so has the pressure on defenders on both sides to use relatively cheap and simple counters,” said Sam Bendett, a consultant in the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analysis, a U.S. research institution. Both Ukraine and Russia now use a number of interceptor drones.

We take drones out of the sky

Interceptor drones, like many innovations on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, were born out of desperation.

The Ukrainians first saw this technology as a cheap way to fight back in early 2024. Russian reconnaissance dronesor uncrewed systems, which often cost more than $100,000 and cruise silently at up to 23,000 feet to monitor the battlefield. The urgency increased as winter arrived and Russia began to unleash waves of war. testimonies — Iranian-designed attack drones that fly towards a target and explode.

Prices were decreasing in Ukraine surface-to-air missilespartly due to declining US weapons support and relied heavily on truck-mounted weapons machine guns To overthrow the Shaheds.

These defenses did not hold up. Attack drones were slipping away, knocking out power grids and causing rolling blackouts when temperatures dropped below freezing. Hospitals operated in the dark and often without water, and civilians scrambled to stockpile firewood and coal.

Ukrainian drone engineers took action and began redesigning their quadcopters into drones that could take down the Shaheds.

Ukraine’s largest crowdfunding organization, the Come Back Alive Foundation, has joined Dronefall, a program aimed at destroying 5,000 Russian drones with piloted vehicles. first person view drones. Taras Tymochko, Dronefall’s project leader, said the program is currently working with 12 to 15 manufacturers and sponsoring more than 3,000 aircraft-capturing drones.

He said construction took almost a year low cost preventive It is capable of shooting down Shahads, which can fly at speeds of up to 185 mph. After doing this, they quickly drove it onto the field.

Drone-drone war is developing rapidly

Interceptor drone designs are now evolving rapidly. Sting, for example, carries a warhead that can travel at speeds of up to 253 miles per hour via four rotating blades. Sensor-guided interceptor produced by Ukrainian drone manufacturer Wild HornetsIt looks like a handheld missile and is small enough to fit in a gym bag. Other interceptors look like small gliders.

The teams that deploy them need to react to threats immediately. A pilot who flew the Sting said his team set out at night on tips from reconnaissance teams and had only 10 minutes to catch the incoming Russian drones before they went out of range.

The operator, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said his crew had been shooting down Shaheds since June.

of the preventer night vision camera The pilot can see the Shaheds, but “it’s really hard to get it to the screen in the first place and requires a lot of maneuvering,” he said.

A successful hit is based on teamwork. A radar operator must locate and track Shaheds, often flying at high altitudes up to 16,000 feet, and then transmit the data to a pilot so they can direct the interceptor to the target. It’s a much harder job than hitting anything on the ground.

The new leg of air defense

Andrii Hrytseniuk, CEO of Ukrainian government-backed innovation driver Brave1He said interceptor drones could be the next big breakthrough in warfare technology, “just as FPV drones and marine drones are reshaping the battlefield in 2023 and fiber optic drones are doing so in 2024.” Brave1 works with approximately 60 manufacturers, offering grants, testing support and helping scale production.

Interest in hunters has increased Russia is investing heavily in long-range drones. Last month, Moscow launched more than 800 attacks in a single offensive, and Western assessments warn that the Kremlin could soon carry out as many as 2,000 attacks a night.

a single missile National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile SystemThe cost of one of the air defense systems supplied to Ukraine is approximately $1 million. Interceptor drones, costing several thousand dollars each, have allowed Ukraine to protect its missiles faster and more lethally navigational and ballistics threats.

NATO allies are beginning to view interceptor drones as a viable air defense option. For example, the United Kingdom announced last month that it would sponsor and jointly develop thousands of projects. low cost interceptor drones With and for Ukraine.

Wild Hornets say Sting drones were used to take out drones in a recent test Danish airspace As the alliance searches for cheaper drone killers than warplanes and patriot missiles.

“The two stakeholders in Ukraine are learning and adapting every day; if they don’t, they will die,” said Vandier, the NATO leader who oversees the alliance’s modernization efforts. “The challenge for NATO is to be on this horse that is going very fast. We need to be on the horse and ride it correctly.”

Drone arms race in Ukraine

An interceptor must be fast and maneuverable enough to intercept a Russian drone while carrying a large warhead, and compression resistant.

Co-founder Olekseii Solntsev said MaXon Systems, a company working with Brave1, produces semi-autonomous models with cameras that focus on targets at 306 kilometers per hour. The drones carry a standard 2.2-pound warhead.

Wild Hornets reported that Sting dropped Shahed over 400 times. gerberastrap versions Iran drone They are made of plywood and foam and are estimated to cost around $10,000 each.

“The drone was very complex to build,” Alex Roslin, Wild Hornets’ external outreach coordinator, said of Sting.

The group shared Sting’s videos screams like a turbo car across the fields and thermal images Footage of interceptors racing behind Russian Shahed-style drones offers a glimpse into the high-risk drone hunts Kiev defenders undertake nightly.

Wild Hornets says Sting cost $2,500. Most interceptors in Ukraine sell for $6,000 or less, depending on their components and whether they come with explosive payloads and technical support.

ComeBackAlive’s Tymochko said success rates can range from 30% to as high as 80% or 90% for some preventers. Success may depend on variables such as target types, blocking time, and type of target. piloting skills.

“If the drone is not automated, the most important part is the skills of the pilot,” Timochko said. “If the pilots are well trained, have a lot of experience with drone intervention, they can show 9 out of 10 results.”

Yeti, chief trainer Drone Fight ClubHe said only the best drone pilots can master interceptor piloting. Of the approximately 5,200 students the school educates, only a few dozen have completed their preventive exams, which have a 30% pass rate.

One reason for the low recruitment and success rate is that Ukrainian troops are weak and cannot afford to send drone pilots for long training periods, Yeti said. His students often have to go through courses to return to the battlefield.

The next phase begins

War is a constant and deadly cycle of innovation; Solutions that work today are potentially obsolete within months. Russia’s next move may already be here.

In recent months the Kremlin has been launching more and more jet-powered Shahed drones. The new stray munitions, called Geran-3 by the Ukrainians, are said to fly at speeds of up to 310 miles per hour; essentially a piloted cruise missile that’s 100 mph faster than the best interceptor drones.

Behind the scenes, Ukrainian engineers are working on defenses for the next phase of the air war.

ComeBackAlive’s Tymochko said, “Nothing will be announced at this point. But I think one day we will find these in the market and these will all be made public.” “It will be the next stage of the competition.”

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