Ukraine is struggling to develop effective interceptor drones capable of countering Russia’s increasingly fast jet-powered UAVs, with recent military trials exposing significant technical challenges, Reuters reports.


In early July, Ukraine’s military invited a large group of drone producers to test a new generation of interceptors designed to counter Russian jet-powered attack drones. According to two sources familiar with the exercise, the tests did not go as planned. Many interceptor drones proved difficult to control at speeds exceeding 400 kilometres per hour, while some crashed into nearby fields and forests.


The exercise highlighted the challenges facing Ukraine as Russia expands its use of faster and more powerful drones while Kyiv continues to face shortages of Western air defence systems.


Russia launched about 450 drones travelling at between 240 and 500 kilometres per hour in June, with the number rising to around 2,850 in August, according to Ukrainian military data reviewed by Reuters. Russia now produces an estimated 3,000 jet-powered drones a month.


Maksym Zhorin, deputy commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, acknowledged the problem, saying: "With the jet drones, we completely screwed up the initiative again, that's a fact." He added: "The Russians have set up mass production and use of jet Shaheds, and we don't even know what to do about them."


Yuriy Cherevashenko, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s air force, said Kyiv was close to deploying mass-produced, low-cost solutions. "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)," he told Reuters.


He said some new rockets were already undergoing testing and that successful head-on interceptions had been carried out using automated guidance systems and manually piloted drones.


However, Cherevashenko warned that the number of jet-powered drones used in Russian strikes would increase. "Going forward, the overall number of such drones in strikes will increase," he said.


By Vafa Guliyeva