Ukraine Bets Big On Low-cost Air Shield Interceptor Drones

JAKARTA - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a strong reason why Ukraine needs $6 billion to fund interceptor drone production, with a target of 1,000 units per day.

After changing the battlefield by doing a job that used to be only intended for long-range missiles, field artillery, and human intelligence, drones are now battling Russian drones as a reward for Ukraine's increasingly depleted supply of air defense missile systems.

In the past two months, only one Ukrainian charity has supplied an aerial interceptor drone stating that its device had shot down about 1.500 Russian-launched drones to spy on the battlefield or bomb Ukrainian cities.

As reported by Reuters on Monday, August 4, such interceptors have the potential to be a cheap and abundant alternative compared to using Western or Soviet-made air defense missiles, which are running low due to inability, or reluctance, allies to recharge them again.

Colonel Serhiy Nonka's 1,129th air defense Regiment, which started using it a year ago to crash and blow up enemy drones, estimates they can shoot down Russian reconnaissance drones at a cost of about a fifth of the costs incurred if they use missiles.

As a result, the flying depth of this enemy reconnaissance drone behind the Ukrainian line has dropped dramatically.

Some estimates say the interceptor speed is more than 300 km/h (190 mph), although the exact figure is still kept secret.

Other units used interceptors to attack the long-range Shahed "kamikaze" drone launched by Russia into Kyiv and other cities, sometimes dropping dozens of drones overnight, according to Zelenskyy.

In the three and a half years since Russia invaded Ukraine on a large scale, drones have turned from aids to one of the main tools for fighting for both sides.

To catch up with them, interception drones must be faster and more powerful than drones that have revolutionized long-range precision attacks and aerial reconnaissance.

Like the First-Person View drone now dominating the battlefield, interception drones are flown by pilots on land via video feeds from internal cameras.

"When we started working (with these drones), the enemy would fly at an altitude of 800 or a thousand meters," said the officer who pioneered the adoption of drones by the 1,129th regiment, Olexy Barsuk. "Now it's three, four, or five thousand but their zoom (camera) is unlimited," he continued.

Most regiment interceptor drones are provided by military charities raising funds for weapons and equipment through donations from civilians.

Taras Tymochko, of the largest charity among them, Come Back Alive, said they are now supplying interceptor drones to 90 units.

Since the project began a year ago, the organization said more than 3,000 drones had been shot down by the equipment they provided, nearly half in the last two months.

However, such interceptor drones are still unable to match the incoming missiles or fast jet-powered attack drones that Moscow recently began deploying.