Ukraine is using its powerful — and cheap — new drone killers for air defense

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As the icy ground cracks beneath their feet, members of an elite Ukrainian drone-hunting team are set for a long night.

The antenna and sensors are clipped to a light stand. Monitors and controls are pulled from hard cases, and a game-changing new weapon is ready for use.

Shaped like a flying thermos, this sting is one of Ukraine’s new homegrown deterrents.

The unit’s commander says the interceptors can effectively counter Russia’s rapidly developing suicide drones, which are now flying faster and at higher altitudes.

“Every destroyed target is something that didn’t hit our homes, our families, our power plants,” said the official, known only by the call sign “Loi” in accordance with Ukrainian military protocol. “The enemy does not sleep, and neither do we.”

The nighttime attacks on Ukrainian cities and power infrastructure forced Kiev to rewrite the air defense rulebook and develop cut-price drone killers costing as little as $1,000.

The interceptors went from prototype to mass production in a few months in 2025 and represent the latest change in modern warfare.

Effective defense in Ukraine relies on mass production, rapid adaptation and layering of low-cost systems over existing defenses, rather than relying on a few expensive, slow-to-replace weapons.

Models like the Sting — created by volunteer-run startup Wild Hornets — and the newly-emerged Bullet can accelerate before crashing into enemy drones. They are flown by pilots looking at monitors or wearing first-person-view goggles.

Economics are important. The drones they destroy cost anywhere from $10,000 to $300,000, says Andrei Lavrenovich, a strategic council member at General Cherry, a fast-growing startup that develops bullets.

He said, ‘We are causing serious financial damage.

Russia favors the Iranian-designed Shahed suicide drone and has produced several variants of the triangular-winged craft, including jammers, cameras and turbojet engines, in an ongoing battle of innovation.

“In some areas they are one step ahead. In others, we invent an innovative solution, and they suffer from it,” Lavrenovych said.

Interceptors are a valuable addition to Ukraine’s — and Europe’s — anti-drone arsenal, says Federico Borsari, a defense analyst at the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis.

“Inexpensive interceptor drones have become so important, and so quickly, that we can consider them the cornerstone of modern counter-unmanned aerial systems,” he said. “They rearrange the cost and scale equation of air defense.”

Their mobility and low cost allow them to defend more targets, but Borsari added: “It would be a mistake to see them as a silver bullet.”

He said their success depends on sensors, fast command and control as well as skilled operators. They can be used in a menu of options that starts with multi-million-dollar missiles and ends with traps and antiaircraft guns.

Ukraine and NATO defense planners on both sides of the conflict expect the hyper-scaling of drone production to continue into 2026, emphasizing European plans to create a layered air-defense system known as a “drone wall.”

The network along Europe’s eastern borders, to be rolled out in two years, is designed to detect, track and intercept drones, with Ukrainian-style interceptors potentially playing a central role in destroying the threat.

Ukrainian drone manufacturers are set to expand co-production with American and European firms next year. Merging battle-tested designs and valuable data with Western scale and funding, the collaboration will boost production and embed Ukraine into NATO-member supply chains.

Another inevitable trend, Lavrenovych argues, is increased automation.

“Our mobile groups don’t have to reach the front lines, where they are targeted,” he said.

“Drones must become fully autonomous robots with artificial intelligence — scary as that sounds — to help our soldiers survive.”

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Yurchuk and Ephraim Lukatsky contributed to this report.