Countering jet-powered Shaheds: Ukraine speeds up interceptor production

What happened

On the evening of September 25, President Volodymyr Zelensky chaired a meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Ukraine’s top wartime decision-making body. One of the key items was the results of testing Ukrainian interceptors against Russia’s jet-powered Shahed drones. The teams doing the intercepting reported on their shoot-down rates and practical experience.

“We identified the main capabilities that can strengthen our defence. We are accelerating production,” Zelensky wrote. He added that new decisions had also been made on setting up production of different types of jet engines in Ukraine. No specific performance figures, models or manufacturers were made public.

Why jet drones are a problem

Jet-powered Shaheds fly much faster than the standard propeller versions, which makes them harder to shoot down. AFP notes that Russia deploys them almost like missiles and that they have managed to bypass some of the interception systems Ukraine has developed.

The same day’s figures illustrate the gap. According to Ukraine’s Air Force, between 07:00 and 18:30 on September 25 Russia launched 162 strike drones, 76 of them jet-powered. Air defence shot down or suppressed 127 targets overall, but only 44 of the 76 jet drones. Daytime attacks that day killed seven people in Kyiv.

How Ukraine got here

On September 15, Zelensky announced a successful test of an interceptor against jet-powered drones, while noting that some aspects of its control still needed refinement. He has also said that 67 companies in Ukraine are working on ways to intercept jet drones, and that three to five of them have already shown results.

What else was decided

Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) briefed the meeting on Russia’s technological plans for 2027: the capabilities Moscow is counting on, its production capacity and the schemes it uses to bring components into Russia. Ukraine will adjust its countermeasures accordingly, the National Security and Defence Council said.

Zelensky named new sanctions packages from partners as a priority task for the Foreign Ministry and the entire diplomatic corps, particularly targeting the shadow schemes Russia uses to keep producing drones and missiles, above all ballistic missiles.

The Staff also approved additional measures to protect data centres and other critical communications facilities and keep them running, after a series of strikes on Kyiv data centres this week.

The other air-defence track

Russia has also stepped up attacks with powerful ballistic missiles, which are hard to intercept. Experts cited by AFP say US-made Patriots are the only reliable defence against them, and Ukraine has been short of Patriot interceptors since the US and Israel went to war with Iran in February.

The same day, Zelensky told journalists that Donald Trump had made a “final decision” that Ukraine would receive licences to produce Patriot missiles. AFP cautions that even with licences, building industrial capacity would take more than a year and would not meet Kyiv’s immediate needs. Interceptors against jet drones are a separate track, one that dozens of Ukrainian companies are working on, according to the president.

What next

Scaling up production of interceptors and jet engines will take time. Kyiv residents interviewed by AFP hope effective countermeasures will be found soon. The next large-scale attacks will show how effective the chosen solutions are, and Kyiv is looking to partners for sanctions that make it harder for Russia to obtain components.