Shershen SAM System: Ukraine Develops Multi-Caliber Air Defense Project

The Ukrainian Shershen multi-caliber surface-to-air missile system was presented at the World Defense Show 2026, an exhibition taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Militarnyi’s correspondent reports on this.

A member of the National Association of Defense Industry of Ukraine (NAUDI), is the main developer and integrator of solutions.

The Shershen anti-aircraft missile system has been tested on five types of missiles. These include Soviet, foreign-made, and promising Ukrainian-made missiles.

“This eliminates dependence on a single supplier, because they operate in a competitive environment and want to tie the customer to themselves for decades. And then a situation arises where, hypothetically, there are launchers, but no missiles, and the volume of missile production is, first, small, and second, they are becoming more and more expensive every year,” NAUDI Director Serhiy Honcharov shared.

Composition of the Shershen SAM system

The Shershen surface-to-air missile system generally consists of:

• a radar station control point,
• launchers,
• launch and reloading vehicles,
• transport and reloading vehicles

The launcher is similar to the Israeli Barak SAM system, where the launch unit is removed from the vehicle using a “multilift” system and left on the ground as a separate autonomous object.

The system is not tied to a specific radar station.

“The radar can be adapted to the system according to the customer’s wishes. That is, there is no strict requirement that only Thales, HENSOLDT, Teledyne, Girafe, or another radar be used. In other words, everything can be adapted, and the control system is very flexible and at least three times cheaper than the global one,” Serhii Honcharov noted regarding the possibility of integrating various radars into the system.

The Shershen air defense system can integrate with the Krechet system, which receives information from other radars and air target detection sources.

The technical characteristics of the engagement range depend on the specific missile that the system will use. For example, the mock-up of the launcher in transport position shows R-27 missiles, while the R-27ET1 version with a thermal homing head is used on the Indian Samar-2 air defense system, where the air target engagement range does not exceed 20 kilometers.

In terms of missile capabilities, the system is short-range, similar to the German IRIS-T SLM or the Norwegian-American NASAMS.