Semi-automated interceptors can fill a gap in air defences — and help Europe address its own aerial vulnerabilities
Ben Hall, Charles Clover and Laura Pitel
September 30, 2025
Financial Times
With a maximum speed in excess of 315km an hour, the Sting tears across Ukrainian skies with a shriek quite unlike the buzz or hum typical of other military drones. The bullet-shaped quadcopter is a drone killer, developed in a matter of months by Ukraine’s innovative defence technology sector.
Kyiv is racing to produce thousands of such interceptors to shoot down Russian attack drones more cheaply and effectively than conventional air defence systems, setting an example for European allies facing their own aerial vulnerabilities.
Europe’s interest in the technology has surged since 21 Russian attack drones entered Poland’s air space earlier this month, exposing weaknesses in Nato’s air defences. The alliance had to send F-35 fighters to shoot down four of the drones with expensive air-to-air missiles, and EU states are now eyeing Ukrainian drone interceptors as part of a proposed “drone wall” along their eastern flank.
Ukrainian companies have been working on air defence drones for barely a year, but already multiple Ukrainian and European companies have combat-tested new interceptors that can bring down Shahed and Gerbera attack drones and are shifting to mass manufacturing. “We are expanding production at a dramatic pace,” said Alex Roslin of Wild Hornets, makers of The Sting. The company first successfully intercepted an attack drone less than five months ago and claims to have downed 600 drones since then.
There is a capability gap between expensive missile defence systems, and anti-aircraft cannons that can no longer reach high-flying drones, said Max Enders, head of business development for Munich-based Tytan Technologies, whose interceptor drones are being tested with the Ukrainian military. “In between that there’s a whole category of threats that Europe is currently struggling to defend itself against, specifically Shahed/Gerbera drones and glide bombs,” he added.
Ukraine pioneered low-cost air defence techniques in the months following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, rolling out acoustic sensors for tracking drones and several hundred heavy machine gun teams.
But Russia changed tactics, flying attack drones higher and out of gun range, and sending them in larger barrages. in a single night earlier this month, it launched 805 Shahed and Gerbera drones across Ukraine. Kyiv has dwindling stocks of advanced short-to-medium range air defence missiles, which are vastly more expensive than Russian Shaheds, thought to cost $35,000 each, although estimates vary.
The AIM-9X interceptor missile for the NASAMS air defence system, for example, costs more than $1mn. The one-way Sting interceptor drone — which explodes on contact — costs $2,100, Roslin said. “It’s a very cost-effective solution. It is an example of Ukraine’s asymmetrical approach, fighting against the mass suicide approach that Russia has,” he added.
With Russian attack drones threatening to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences, the country’s defence tech companies — co-ordinated by government platform Brave1 — came up with designs including quadcopters, fixed-wing drones, catapult launch systems and even one tethered to balloons.
The interceptors are mostly piloted, but may be partly automated in target identification and guidance as they home in for the kill. Drone-makers are cagey about design details for fear of divulging information to the enemy.
Serhiy Sternenko, an activist whose crowdfunding platform is financing Ukrainian drone production including by Wild Hornets, claimed The Sting had proven 70 per cent effective, although the figure cannot be independently verified.
But cost is as important as technology, the drone-makers say. “The problem of air defence is as much about economics as it is about physics,” said Oleksandr Yakovenko, chief executive of TAF Industries, one of Ukraine’s largest drone-makers.
To ensure success, Ukraine’s air defence forces say they need to deploy three interceptors for every one Shahed, which at current rates means 2,500 a day, according to Enders. “The scale is mind-boggling.”
Ukraine’s defence minister Denys Shmyhal this month said Ukraine would “in the near future” be able to deploy 1,000 drone interceptors a day.
Ukraine’s domestic weapons production has been constrained by limited resources and it has sought funding from partners. In the wake of Russia’s drone incursion into Poland, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Europe to team up with Ukraine on air defence, vaunting “its much cheaper, more massive and systemic solutions’’.
Shmyhal said Ukraine also needed to expand the number of control systems, radars and kits for precision targeting.
No sooner has it started to deploy its latest air defence weapon than Ukraine has to respond to the next threat. Russia is increasingly using fast-moving jet-powered Shaheds. Although there are also claims that these too can be shot down by drone interceptors already in service, Ukrainian companies are working on faster models. “There are only a few things in the testing stages, nothing in mass production,” said an executive at drone-maker General Cherry who asked not to be named.
Another challenge is to increase automation. Tytan Technologies says its drone is designed to be fully autonomous from target detection and launch to final strike. This would allow one operator to use several interceptor drones at once.
Drone-makers say Europe needs to learn the right lessons from Ukraine’s innovative response as it seeks to boost its own air defences. “The real genius is they have let a thousand flowers bloom and then let them work together,” says Tytan’s Enders. “On the software side, one of the pillars on which this whole thing rests is maximum interoperability — with one standard protocol that allows sensors to talk to each other and the interceptors.’’
Another lesson is the need for constant iteration and adaptation to the constantly evolving enemy threat, according to Yehor Dudinov, chief executive of Falcons, another maker of drone interceptors. “You should be prepared to make day-by-day improvements, taking feedback from the front line, from your users,’’ Dudinov said. ‘‘You must be extremely active at improving, improving, improving.”
The speed of change on the battlefield also challenges the notion that European governments should buy together in bulk to achieve economies of scale and build up stocks.
The head of the German armed forces, Carsten Breuer, this month suggested the military could set up special contracts allowing them to buy a large number of the latest drones at short notice, rather than buying the weapons in advance and leaving them gathering dust in warehouses.
Dudinov said: “You cannot work with a big contract, buy a large number of drones and then put them on the shelf. Six months later, they will no longer be a solution. It doesn’t work.”
Ben Hall is Europe editor of the FT, writing interviews, analysis and comment and managing the European network of correspondents. He has worked at the FT since 2000. He was previously world news editor, Europe news editor, Paris correspondent, UK political correspondent, deputy comment editor and a leader writer.
Laura Pitel is the FT’s Berlin correspondent. Her beats include German foreign policy, defence and energy. Previously she was the FT’s Turkey correspondent.
Charles Clover is the Defence Correspondent, writing from London now. Wrote Black Wind White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism.