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Ukraine Has 4 Drone Killers for Jet-Powered Shaheds—Now It Wants Thousands
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![Photo of Vlad Litnarovych]( "Photo of Vlad Litnarovych")
Ukraine has already field-tested four interceptor drone designs capable of taking down Russia’s new jet-powered Shahed-type drones and is now racing to refine the systems and manufacture them by the thousands, Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said.
Khmara disclosed the development during a meeting attended by a UNITED24 Media correspondent, outlining Ukraine’s efforts to find a scalable response to faster jet-powered drones increasingly appearing in Russian attacks.
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“We continue searching for ways to counter jet-powered drones. There are already four potential interceptors capable of shooting down jet-powered Shaheds. They have already undergone field testing,” Khmara said.
“The task is to bring these solutions to the required level as quickly as possible and scale production to thousands of units.”
The announcement comes as Russia increases the number and variety of aerial weapons used against Ukraine, making inexpensive drone interception one of Kyiv’s most urgent air defense priorities.
Work is continuing nonstop in the village of Myla in the Kyiv region to address the aftermath of the Russian strike. First responders have managed to extinguish most of the fires. Explosive ordnance disposal units of the State Emergency Service are also working at the site around… pic.twitter.com/nI0w7Riveu
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 30, 2026
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched nearly 2,000 strike drones against Ukraine in the past week alone, alongside more than 1,600 guided aerial bombs and 31 missiles.
“In total, this week alone, the Russians have launched nearly 2,000 strike drones, more than 1,600 aerial bombs, and 31 missiles of various types, including North Korean ballistic missiles, against our people. Strikes on frontline and border communities are virtually constant—Nikopol, Kramatorsk, Kherson, and communities in the Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Donetsk, and Sumy regions,” Zelenskyy wrote.
Jet-powered Shahed-type drones present an additional challenge because their significantly higher speed reduces the time available for defenders to detect, pursue and destroy them compared with conventional propeller-driven variants.
Ukraine has increasingly turned to interceptor drones as a lower-cost layer of air defense against Russian UAVs. Rather than expend expensive surface-to-air missiles against comparatively cheap incoming drones, specialized interceptors can pursue and destroy them at a fraction of the cost.
The appearance of jet-powered variants, however, raises the performance requirements considerably, forcing Ukrainian developers to produce interceptors capable of reaching substantially higher speeds while retaining the guidance and maneuverability needed to catch an aerial target.
Earlier reports indicated that a Russian jet-powered drone flew approximately 960 kilometers from its launch point on August 28, setting a reported new range record for this type of UAV.
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