The Guardian ·
Ukraine war briefing: New anti-drone weapon scores hit amid race against Shahed jets
Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps announces Vivaldi counter-offensive is recapturing Russian-held territory. What we know on day 1,666
“Today, there is good news about interceptors against jet-powered Shaheds,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his Tuesday evening address as he spoke about efforts to counter newer, faster Russian suicide drones. A new interceptor managed to shoot one down, Zelenskyy said, without giving further details. “It’s a Ukrainian development and it scored a hit, the Shahed was destroyed.” He added: “Some technical things still need to be refined.” Ukraine’s military said its forces downed 187 airborne targets overnight into Tuesday – Zelenskyy said “of course more is needed”.
Ukraine has struggled to develop interceptors for the jet-engined Shahed drones that Russia has started using, which can go faster than 400km/h. Previously, Shaheds were all propeller-driven and half as fast. Reuters reports that tests of interceptors have been hampered by the high speeds involved. “With the jet drones, we completely screwed up the initiative again, that’s a fact … we don’t even know what to do about them,” Maksym Zhorin, deputy commander of the 3rd Army Corps, posted on Friday.
Zelenskyy has said more than 60 Ukrainian companies are working on interceptors for jet-powered drones but only a handful have demonstrated results. Yuriy Cherevashenko, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s air force, said one solution being tested was a new generation of cheap guided missiles – engineered to cost less than the drones they shoot down. “I’m confident that soon we could fully have a class of weapons that will be effective at countering jet-powered UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles],” Cherevashenko said.
