The west's drone defence problem

And Ukraine's solution

Since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran has responded by attacking American assets and US allies in the region with ballistic missiles and drones. More than 1000 Iranian Shahed-type drones, which Russia has been using to attack Ukraine for years, have targeted nearly a dozen countries.

Although the vast majority of the drones have been shot down, some have hit several strategic sites like the Dubai International Airport, a US naval base in Bahrain, and a US Embassy in Riyadh, among others.

Despite high interception rates—the United Arab Emirates, which faced most of the drones, said it shot down roughly 93% of them—the attacks have highlighted the vulnerability of western militaries having to deplete their stocks of expensive missiles to down cheap, mass-produced drones.

Available data, though scarce, suggests that the US and its allies have been mostly relying on jets and helicopters to down Shaheds, using the surface-to-air missile systems like the Patriot as a last resort if drones slip through the aircraft barrier. The math is not optimal: most missiles cost anywhere between hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars and can take more than a year to produce, while Iran can make thousands of drones a month that cost anywhere between $20,000 to $100,000 per unit.

Another problem is that western militaries rely on area defence instead of point defence, meaning that they use long-range assets to cover large swaths of territory instead of dispersing more flexible mobile systems to defend specific high-value targets.

The only country in the world that has effective battle-tested solutions to both of these problems is Ukraine—and in light of the war in Iran, President Zelensky is trying to leverage that.

“Ukraine’s expertise in countering Shahed drones is currently the most advanced in the world,” the president said on March 3. He also said Ukraine has been fielding requests from allies seeking assistance in defending against Iranian drones.

The first time Ukraine downed an Iranian Shahed-type drone was around September 13, 2022. Having purchased hundreds of Shaheds from Iran, Russia began sending small groups of these drones at civilian targets and critical infrastructure.

Ukraine responded by immediately putting together mobile fire groups, teams of soldiers that shot the drones down mostly with machine guns from the back of a vehicle. It also used fighter jets, helicopters, and ground-fired anti-aircraft missiles when necessary. The Shaheds were a nightmare to locate, the drones being too small and flying too low and too slowly to be reliably picked up on radars. Their moped-like buzzing, though, was so usefully loud that Ukraine developed a country-wide network of acoustic sensors mounted on poles to detect and track them.

Since then, Ukraine has intercepted tens of thousands of Shaheds, continuously upgrading its air defence system as Russia makes the drones stealthier and deadlier.

Arguably the most important development was the recent creation of interceptor drones.

Ukrainian models, of which there are around a dozen, cost between $3,000 and $5,000, while the American-made interceptor, Eric Schmidt’s Merops, costs about $14,500.

Both Merops and the Ukrainian models have been actively used in Ukraine for at least several months. In January, President Zelensky said Ukraine was producing 1,000 interceptor drones a day.

Although the technology is still young and the effectiveness of different models varies, their price tag and scalability makes them the single most cost-effective solution to the Shahed problem. More than 70% of all Shahed-type drones that attacked Kyiv in February were downed by interceptor drones, Ukrainian authorities said.

This Thursday, five days into the American-Israeli war with Iran, President Zelensky said Ukraine received a request from the United States “for specific support” in defending the Middle East against Iranian Shahed-type drones. The Financial Times reported that the Pentagon and at least one Gulf state was in talks to buy the Ukrainian interceptors.

“I have instructed that the necessary resources be provided and that Ukrainian specialists be present to ensure the necessary security,” Zelensky said.

The president also hinted that Kyiv was open to exchanging drone interceptor technology for the Patriot PAC-3 missiles, which are Ukraine’s only remedy for Russian ballistics.

What do you think about Ukrainian drone defence? Join me and my colleague Francis Farrell, a front line reporter at the Kyiv Independent, at the Yours Ukrainian community call tomorrow at 10 EST. The call is only available for my paid supporters, so make sure you’re subscribed to get the link.

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Yours,

Ukrainian