The developers behind Ukraine’s interceptor drones are constantly having to upgrade their products to keep pace with changing Russian tactics and ensure these cheap air defense tools don’t become obsolete.
Several people directly involved with interceptor drones and their development told Business Insider that the systems are being upgraded, though how quickly those improvements roll out varies.
Interceptor drones emerged last year as a crucial, low-cost tool Ukraine uses to defend against worsening Russian attacks.
These weapons are typically used to hunt fixed-wing Russian drones conducting strike and reconnaissance missions. They’re armed with small warheads and fly directly into their targets or explode nearby to destroy them midair.
Some Ukrainian interceptor drones cost as little as $2,500 — just a fraction of the price of the Russian drones, estimated to cost between $10,000 and $100,000, depending on their battlefield function.
Russia has changed its tactics over the past year, modifying its drones to fly faster and higher and even arming them with cameras and air-to-air missiles to defeat Ukrainian defenses. The changes have forced Ukraine’s defense industry to adapt.
Wild Hornets, a defense technology outfit making drones for the Ukrainian military, “continuously plans upgrades” to its drones and other related equipment like ground control systems, said Alex Roslin, the firm’s foreign support coordinator.
This process occurs daily, he said, and “innovations” are made at all levels of the production journey, from individual components to new systems like Wild Hornets’ well-known Sting interceptor drone.
Roslin said the firm is focused on refining its drones and scaling up production, priorities the team discusses every day.
Some other products receive improvements at a slower pace. For instance, the British government, which is working to produce thousands of interceptor drones a month for Ukraine, said in early January that it updates the design about every six weeks “to stay ahead of Russian tactics.”
Britain said “live battlefield data feeds straight into UK production lines, allowing rapid upgrades and faster delivery to the front line.”
As the need for interceptor drones grows among Kyiv’s forces, so does the market for these weapons. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters last month that the local defense industry is producing around 1,000 systems a day, hitting the goal he set over the summer.
With so many interceptor drones now on the market, competition is driving manufacturers to constantly improve their products to fly faster and higher to meet the Russian threats, said Oleksiy, the deputy commander of a Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces mobile air defense unit.
Oleksiy’s unit is tasked with protecting Irpin, a city on the outskirts of Kyiv, and has historically relied on a .50-caliber M2 Browning machine gun mounted in the bed of a pickup truck to battle Russian drones.
His crew began training on new interceptor drones last year to strengthen their defensive arsenal. The drones can fly at speeds of around 300 kilometers per hour (186 miles per hour) and reach an altitude of up to 6,000 meters (nearly 20,000 feet).
He said the quadcopter-style interceptor drone his crew trains with is updated every six months using feedback from combat forces provided to the manufacturer.
The rise of Ukraine’s interceptor drones has come as Russia has invested heavily in long-range drone operations, regularly sending hundreds of drones — some armed and others decoys designed to exhaust air defenses — across the border in nightly attacks.
Western military officials and Ukrainian organizations have said that interceptor drones are responsible for downing thousands of Russian drones over the past year.
NATO countries are taking note of the interceptors’ success as a low-cost air defense tool, with some allies buying and deploying systems to defend the Eastern flank from possible Russian drone incursions.
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