In March 2026 Ukrainian interceptor drones downed more than 33,000 Russian unmanned aerial vehicles of various types, including Shahed, Gerbera, Molniya, ZALA, Orlan, and others — twice as many as in February, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry.
Ukraine’s Minister of Defence, Mykhailo Fedorov said: “Interceptor drones are a Ukrainian innovation that has already emerged as a key component of our air defense,” According to the Minister, the key challenge is jet-powered Shahed drones. “Our task is to find a technological solution. Together with manufacturers, we assessed their products and level of readiness, identified bottlenecks, and synchronized efforts to enable rapid scaling,” he said.
Recently, under the EU4UA Defence Tech grant programme jointly implemented with the EU, the Brave1 defense tech cluster supported 12 technologies. Companies are set to receive up to EUR150,000 to develop high-speed interceptor drones (450+ km/h) and advanced systems for countering aerial targets.
“At the President’s direction, the parties also discussed the following matters: contracting for 2026; training of pilots; test ranges; shortage of ground control stations; exports; updates to performance evaluation criteria under the “Army of Drones Bonus” program.”
To build and scale the interceptor drone market, the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine has taken several systemic steps, according to a ministry press release. It has developed a unique model for rewarding companies for intercepting Shahed drones; it was within this initiative that a Shahed UAV was intercepted for the first time by an interceptor drone, said the ministry. Since 2024, Brave1, Ukraine’s defence tech cluster, has awarded more than 40 grants to manufacturers. Currently, the cluster brings together around 100 interceptor drone manufacturers. And the Brave1 Dataroom has been launched — a platform for the training and validation of AI models. Currently, more than 30 companies are testing, validating, and training over 50 AI models for the detection and interception of aerial targets under varying time-of-day and weather conditions.
Mykhailo Fedorov has set two key tasks for interceptor drone manufacturers: to develop and scale jet-powered interceptor drone technologies to counter jet-powered Shahed UAVs; to develop alternative terminal guidance systems for operation in adverse weather conditions.
For more information
https://mod.gov.ua/en/news/a-record-33-000-enemy-ua-vs-were-destroyed-by-interceptor-drones-in-march-double-the-number-recorded-in-the-previous-month
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