Ukraine plans to begin large-scale deployment of interceptor drones against Russian jet-powered UAVs within the next few months. Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said this in comments to Novyny.LIVE.
According to Budanov, Ukrainian developers are already testing prototypes of these interceptors directly under combat conditions. The tests are no longer limited to laboratories โ some prototypes are already being used against Russian drones and are proving effective.
โWe are now testing prototypes not in laboratories as we did before, but against real targets, and they are doing their job,โ Budanov said.
The next stage will be scaling up production and deploying the interceptors much more widely. Budanov estimates that Ukraine will need several more months before it can begin intercepting jet-powered drones on a large scale.
Russia has recently been making extensive use of jet-powered drones to strike Ukrainian cities. Their high speed makes them more difficult to intercept with conventional systems, prompting Ukraine to simultaneously develop fast, compact interceptor drones. Budanov previously described this as a technological race between jet-powered UAVs and a new generation of interceptors.
Shortly before Budanovโs remarks, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Ukraine currently had no effective defense against Russiaโs new Geran drones. On September 25, Putin said Kyiv had โno countermeasure, no antidoteโ to these UAVs yet.
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