Ukraine’s defense industry is working to create several separate systems that will destroy different types of drones.

Long-range drones, fighter jets, or ballistic and cruise missiles – Russia’s advantage in the sky “breaks our necks,” as a Ukrainian officer recently told BILD.

“The destruction of Russian military air bases by Western weapons is prohibited for Ukraine. That is why the government in Kyiv considers itself artificially weakened by the West,” BILD says.

That is why Ukrainian engineers and their Western allies are working on innovative solutions to this problem. An alternative that Ukraine is currently working hard on is “counter-drone” drones, which are supposed to stop Russian reconnaissance drones.

BILD explained the three stages of development of these counter-drone weapons: Phase 1: Kamikaze quadcopters; Phase 2: fixed-wing kamikaze UAVs; and Phase 3: Shahed-type loitering munition.

The first stage is already being actively implemented in Ukraine. Small drones have been reprogrammed to be used for air combat rather than reconnaissance or attacking ground targets.

“Every week, small Ukrainian drones ram about 50 Russian reconnaissance drones and even shoot down larger Russian kamikaze drones,” Bild said.

However, the problem with small quadcopters is that they can only fly a short distance, so Russian reconnaissance aircraft can escape from them.

Therefore, in the second stage, Ukraine is developing so-called “interceptors,” i.e., fixed-wing drones that can follow the Russian enemy at a distance of up to 60 kilometers at an altitude of up to four kilometers.

In the third stage, the aim of Ukraine and its partners is to create “Shahed drone killers” that will be able to intercept and destroy Iranian-Russian Shahed long-range drones.

“To be effective, they need to have a speed of at least 200 km/h and a long range (at least 200, preferably 500 kilometers). The price also plays a role,” Bild noted.

According to BILD, Ukraine hopes to enter the third phase of its counter-drone program no later than 2025.