Interceptor drone wanted: Ukraine reports first successes against Russian reconnaissance drones

An interceptor drone against Russian reconnaissance drones such as Orlan, SuperCam or ZALA: Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation, called for proposed solutions on his Telegram channel on 3 April. First successes are already visible at the front.

The call was aimed at developers and engineers: they were to design a drone capable of shooting down enemy reconnaissance drones, so that Ukraine need not waste air defence missiles on them. According to the Ukrainian definition, the targets typically fly at an altitude of 1,500 metres and at 100 to 150 km/h.

The Ukrainian defence technology development support cluster “Brave1” was tasked with finding a solution. The interceptor drone was also high on the agenda of the London Defence Tech Hackathon at the end of April.

Interceptor drone delivers first results

Once again, solutions in the drone war are quickly delivering demonstrable results at the front. What Ukraine's system – or systems – in use look like is still unclear. However, Ukraine is increasingly daring to publicise the results of its efforts: in recent days, a growing number of videos of interception missions have appeared on social media.

Russia also attaches high priority to countering reconnaissance drones, but no results from that side are known so far.