Britain Plans to Produce 2,000 Interceptor Drones for Ukraine Every Month as Part of OCTOPUS Project

The United Kingdom plans to start producing about 2,000 interceptor drones per month for Ukraine to shoot down Russian Shaheds.

Luke Pollard, the British Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry, told Bloomberg.

The interceptors are to be produced as part of a joint Ukrainian-British project called OCTOPUS, which was announced by the British government in September.

Back then, the government said that the drone had been developed in Ukraine with the support of British scientists and technicians. It has successfully proven itself on the battlefield.

According to Pollard, the project is currently under negotiation and could be implemented in the coming months.

“Very soon we will be producing about 2,000 drones (interceptors) a month and sending them to Ukraine so they can be used to intercept Russian drones,” a British official said on the sidelines of the Defense Industry Forum in Kyiv.

He noted that the production of the interceptor drones would initially be located in the UK and organized flexibly enough to respond to changing needs on the battlefield.

Earlier, the UK government noted that interceptor drones were much cheaper than missiles for air defense systems and had proven effective in countering Shahed/Geran-2 attack drones, which Russia was constantly using to attack Ukrainian cities.

Pollard also said that the UK was planning other defense projects with Ukraine, including the production of planning bombs.

Drone wall

At the end of September, British Defence Secretary John Healey said that interceptor drones, which would be manufactured in the UK as part of the OCTOPUS project, would form the basis of a European ‘drone wall’ to counter Russian drones.

The drones are planned to be deployed on the borders of NATO allies to deter the increasingly frequent intrusions of Russian aircraft and drones into the airspace of the alliance.

In the future, the OCTOPUS drones could also become part of the defense system to protect military installations and critical infrastructure in the UK.