Interceptor drones: when drones fight drones

You spent three years in the Ukrainian army, starting as a pilot and later leading an attack element before you had to leave because of a wound. Today you work for the organisation “Come Back Alive”. What does your job look like?
We are a strategic partner of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We procure equipment – from drones and cars to weapons. But more importantly, we build bridges between the defence sector, military units and foreign partners. We need to understand what is happening at the front. If you do not understand that, you do not know how to help. Since state processes are often slow, we try to bring new technologies and tactics into the units much faster.

You are an NGO, but you buy military equipment. How does that work alongside state procurement?
We were founded in 2014, when everything was lacking, even body armour. Today we are the first NGO in Ukraine with permission to buy weapons, machine guns and armour directly. Since the beginning we have raised more than one billion euros.

One billion euros? That is impressive. Who are your sponsors?
At the start it was ordinary Ukrainian citizens donating from one Ukrainian hryvnia upwards. We now also work closely with Ukrainian companies. Every company today understands that a Shahed drone can destroy its business. We also have partners abroad, for instance a Norwegian NGO with whose help we were able to buy pick-up trucks for the “Dronefall” project.

How has the drone situation changed since the start of the war?
When I joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces before the Russian invasion, we hardly knew first-person-view (FPV) drones. At the start of the war I was the pilot of a reconnaissance drone, similar to a Mavic. My task was to find Russians in the forests or to reconnoitre their logistics. Today the situation is completely different. FPV and attack drones are part of everyday life. That is why there is a new initiative, “Dronefall”, to shoot down Russian attack drones in a targeted way with mobile units.

What developments are you making there?
We have over a hundred WhatsApp chats with air defence units. We talk to them daily to see which technology has a future. One example: at first nobody believed that an interceptor drone costing 1,000 euros could destroy a Russian drone costing 15,000 euros or even a Shahed. Today we intercept thousands of Shaheds per month with cheap FPV drones. We are scaling this technology up massively.

“At first nobody believed that an interceptor drone costing 1,000 euros could destroy a Russian drone costing 15,000 euros or even a Shahed. Today we intercept thousands of Shaheds per month with cheap FPV drones.”

When did you realise that interceptor drones, “interceptors”, would become so powerful?
In 2023, FPV drones became a mass product against tanks. But then we got a new problem: Russian reconnaissance drones such as Orlan, Zala or Supercam. They circle above our positions and direct artillery or missiles. Even a MiG-29 was destroyed this way at an air base far from the border. We realised: if we do not take these systems out, we lose.

So you deploy drones against drones?
In Europe people often talk about missiles. But firstly, we do not have enough of them, and secondly, you cannot simply walk into a depot and buy 100 missiles when the Russians are deploying drones en masse. FPV interceptor drones are the solution. But there are problems: the sky is huge. You have to know exactly where the drone is. You need radar systems and the technology to fuse the data.

How does the interceptor drone engage the enemy? Does it simply ram it?
There are two ways. You can ram it, but normally we have a small explosive charge of about 100 grams on board. When you are close enough to the Russian drone, you press the button, the drone explodes and destroys the enemy one.

Does the pilot control it with VR goggles?
At the beginning the pilots went into the field with goggles. Today it is different. The Russians try to kill everyone who works in air defence. That is why the pilots sit in bunkers. The antennas are mounted outside on trees; inside, the pilot has his screen and, on a second monitor, the air picture.

How are the enemy drones detected?
We use small tactical radar stations. In Ukraine we have developed a system that collects data from different radar stations and displays it on one interface. That way the pilot sees every drone in the sky in his sector.

Are the interceptor drones controlled by radio? Are there problems with electronic warfare or jamming?
Yes, we use radio frequencies. Wire-guided control is not possible because of the wind at altitude. Jamming is a problem, but we have developed technologies that are hard to jam. Often the problem is rather our own jamming and the coordination between the units in the same sector.

“Ukraine is huge, we cannot protect every power plant individually. We have to intercept the drones at the border.”

How successful are these interceptor drones in operation?
Many in the West think they are just “cheap weapons”. But in truth they are the only way to intercept so many targets. You cannot fight 500 Shaheds per night with Patriot missiles. Even if you had the money, there would not be enough missiles. We are building a layered defence. In March of this year we intercepted a total of over 30,000 Russian drones, 6,000 of them by units involved in the “Dronefall” project alone.

So you are building a shield along the border?
Exactly. Ukraine is huge, we cannot protect every power plant individually. We have to intercept the drones at the border. Formations deployed there, such as infantry brigades, manage about one third, the air defence units another third. The last line is formed by units that work purely with interceptor drones and take out the remaining third. For targets deep inside the country we also use helicopters, as interceptor drones have problems there because of the radio range.

Can interceptor drones also be used against Russian helicopters or fighter jets?
In theory yes, but helicopters often fly very low, which makes the radio link to the ground station difficult. But Russian helicopters are no longer as big a problem today as they were three years ago. We have already shot down so many. The main problem today is Shaheds and Zala Lancet drones (editor's note: loitering munitions).

What developments do you expect in drones in the near future?
The drones are getting faster and faster. The Russians are constantly improving their reconnaissance drones, so we have to adapt our motors and frequencies every two months. We now produce about half of the components in Ukraine. Only thermal imaging cameras still have to be imported. The biggest problem, however, is not capacity but the shortage of pilots.

How do you solve this personnel problem?
We work with training centres. The fighting formations have no time to train new people. At the same time we are making the drones more autonomous. We are developing “last-mile solutions”: once the interceptor drone sees the Shahed, it tracks and destroys it automatically without a pilot. That allows us to deploy less qualified personnel as well. We are also developing systems in which a pilot in Kyiv can control a drone in the Donbas. That way we can deploy our best pilots where they are needed most urgently.

Roughly how much does such an interceptor drone cost?
A normal FPV interceptor drone costs about 1,000 euros. An anti-Shahed version with a thermal imaging camera is around 2,000 euros. The camera is the most expensive part. There are also larger models that look like small aircraft and cost up to 3,000 euros. These can fly much further. I have seen videos of us intercepting a Russian Orlan ten kilometres behind the front line.