Amid concern in Kyiv that the United States is becoming a less dependable ally, Ukraine has unveiled its own domestically developed drone designed specifically to counter one of Moscow’s weapons of choice, Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones.
Russia again launched multiple drones on Monday at Ukraine’s Sumy region. Explosions rang out from strikes that claimed lives and damaged civilian infrastructure. Vladimir Putin’s forces have used the lethal, relatively inexpensive Shahed drones to attack Ukraine’s infrastructure for years.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and visiting Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever met representatives of defense companies in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, where the new Ukrainian weapon system was revealed.
Video posted by Zelenskyy on social media showed what was touted as a newly developed interceptor drone, but the images were kept obscure to avoid divulging details of the system, and no information on it was provided.
Developers claim the interceptors have already taken down more than 20 Shaheds over about two months.
Wild Hornets, a Ukrainian non-profit organization, is one of the entities behind the development of new interceptor drones. A co-founder of the group told CBS News that the interceptors it’s working on, a system known as STING, went into production at the beginning of the year and are now being supplied in significant numbers to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The organization, which said it’s funded largely by private donations like other such groups backing Ukraine’s war efforts, claims the interceptors, which it is still developing, can easily reach speeds over 125 miles per hour.
Wild Hornets’ spokesperson said the group imports many of the components needed to build the STING drones from China, as the European Union currently does “not have similar components of the appropriate quantity and quality.”
The organization emphasized that it was looking for ways to substitute Chinese components with Ukrainian-made parts. The spokesperson told CBS News that Wild Hornets’ production of STING interceptors has been increasing by “several times” every month.
Shortly after the weapons system was shown off for Zelenskyy, de Wever and the defense executives in Kyiv last week, Ukrainian and Belgian representatives signed a cooperation agreement between the countries’ respective defense industries.
Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of joint production to the “future security of all Europe.”
The new interceptors could prove vital for Ukraine. They offer a far cheaper and more sustainable option for taking down Russia’s relatively small but multitudinous exploding drones compared to traditional air defense systems, which require more expensive anti-aircraft missiles, often supplied by Ukraine’s partners.
Kyiv has prioritized the development of such domestic technology in a bid to reduce its dependence on missile systems supplied by its Western allies.
In a recent interview with a Ukrainian news outlet, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military, said there had already been a reduction in U.S. support, while touting his country’s innovation and growing defense production capacity.
“The assistance from the United States has decreased. And the main assistance comes from our partners in Europe,” Syrskyi told the LB (Left Bank) news outlet in an interview published on April 9. “But we must also rely on our own strength. And we have successes in the production of artillery. Quite significant successes in electronic warfare. We are making progress — our partners are already studying our experience.”
Moscow has used the Shahed drones to relentlessly target Ukraine’s civil, energy and transport infrastructure.
Despite a suspected targeting success rate of only about 10%, according to the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Shahed’s harder-to-detect, low altitude operation and cost of only about $35,000 per unit has made them a weapon of choice for Russia.
CSIS notes that a single Russian Kalibr cruise missile, by comparison, costs over a million dollars.
Even though Ukraine shoots down a majority of the Shaheds launched by Russia, they still pose a significant threat to the country. Shaheds launched by Russia at Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, killed two people and wounded more than a dozen others last month alone.
A report issued in March by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Science and International Security said that over the course of seven months, Russia launched some 15,000 Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicles at Ukraine.
Russia started using the Iranian-designed Shaheds in August 2022, six months after Putin ordered his military’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
