Subject: Drone Wars
US now asking Ukraine for help with drones.

The most significant breakthrough Ukrainian forces have made in taking down Shaheds is the design of interceptor drones. These low-cost drones can detect and neutralize Shahed drones using AI. In Kyiv alone, interceptor drones have shot down about 70 percent of the kamikaze drones launched by Russia. Ukraine has the potential to share this technology with Western partners.

U.S. officials now believe its air defense systems might fail to reliably intercept Iranian drones CNN. Since the drones fly lower and slower than ballistic missiles, they can more easily evade traditional air defenses. The Pentagon and at least one Persian Gulf country have reportedly already begun talks with Kyiv to buy interceptor drones.

“The issue is not that the United States or wealthy Arab countries lack the means to shoot them [Shaheds] down… but those are all expensive systems. They don’t have cheap ones. We do,” said Yurii.

At the same time, the high intensity of the fighting is rapidly depleting stocks of interceptor missiles for American Patriot systems, which are critical for Ukraine’s ability to defend its skies from Russian missile strikes.

This winter, Kyiv briefly ran out of Patriot missiles when temperatures dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius, nearly triggering a humanitarian disaster as Russia launched devastating attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure.

“On Jan. 6 we were standing there, and missiles were just flying in one after another. Almost nothing was being shot down — not because people weren’t firing or weren’t hitting their targets, but because, it seemed, there were already no missiles left in stock. We were watching it all, flying in and exploding,” Yurii recalled.


Supreme Court judge Yurii Chumak. Photo by The Counteroffensive.
Iran is also seeking to replicate some of Russia’s tactics in choosing targets. Tehran has begun implementing a strategy aimed at sowing complete chaos in the Middle East, according to The Financial Times.

Under a plan designed by the country’s killed Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and Tehran’s top commanders, Iran is expected to target energy infrastructure and other facilities whose damage could disrupt regional airspace. By doing so, Tehran allegedly seeks to destabilize global markets and increase pressure on Israel and the U.S.

Yurii believes Ukraine should offer its partners help in countering Iranian Shahed drones. But he is skeptical about whether the United States might just steal their hard-fought technology

“They may purchase them, test them, see how effective they are, and then say: ‘Thank you for your technologies and for everything you developed during years of war, testing it all in real conditions and bringing it to a more or less practical level of perfection. Now we’ll handle it ourselves.’”

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