Interceptor Drones Kill Almost 1/3 of Russian Air Threats: Commander

Ukraine’s interceptor drones now account for nearly a 3rd of the Russian aerial threats destroyed, a high officer within the nation’s department for uncrewed air defenses mentioned.

“If we bear in mind the share of interceptor UAVs within the destruction of air targets, we now have already reached the mark of 30%,” mentioned Col. Yuriy Cherevashenka in a video interview printed on Monday by Ukraine’s air drive.

“That’s, each third drone goal that’s destroyed in Ukraine is destroyed by an interceptor UAV,” he added.

His feedback sign a milestone within the Ukrainian use of interceptor drones. These are sometimes small, cheap quadcopters optimized to fly quick sufficient to catch Russian one-way assault drones.

These air protection drones had been an rising novelty within the earlier years of the battle, however Ukraine started accelerating their growth in late 2024 as an economical reply to Moscow ramping up its common drone assaults on Ukrainian cities.

A 12 months later, Ukrainian officers mentioned in December that the nation was producing 950 interceptor drones per day.

Russia launches 1000’s of long-range drones into Ukraine each month, and has been identified to typically accumulate over 800 of them to assault in a single night time. Its commonest assault drone is a regionally constructed model of the Iranian Shahed loitering munition.

Interceptor drones are constructed to destroy these aerial threats by ramming into them or deploying an explosive warhead. A lot of a profitable interception depends on the talent of the pilot and crew, who should spot the Shahed shortly, method its trajectory, monitor its place, after which fly their drone into the Russian machine.

Not all interceptors are quadcopters, however many are designed with 4 propellers and a dome-like body to succeed in excessive speeds, because the typical Shahed can attain as much as 115 mph, whereas extra superior variations are estimated to reach 230 mph.