By Max Hunder
KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine, April 29 (Reuters) - In a foggy field in northeast Ukraine, four soldiers stare at red and yellow dots on a screen in the back of a van, armed with interceptor drones and energy drinks to get through the night.
These pilots, and about a thousand other crews like them, are on the frontlines of Ukraine's drive to knock one of Russia's most potent weapons out of the war: the Shahed drone.
"Even if you use 50 drones to shoot down one Shahed, it's worth it," said Borys,
the commander of the crew, who was a TV news producer before the war upended his life. "One Shahed can fly in and destroy something far more valuable."
The pioneering low-cost, long-range attack drones designed by Iran have indeed become the scourge of Ukraine, with Russia unleashing thousands of them on its enemy every month. Moscow has adapted the design of the Shahed, which it calls the Geran, to include improved navigation and engines as well as larger warheads.
While most Shaheds and other long-range drones are downed by Ukraine, those that get through - more than 1,000 out of about 6,500 launched last month, according to Ukrainian air force data - have wrought havoc on military infrastructure, cities and energy facilities, depriving millions of people of heating and lighting.
In February, new Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced a drive to reach a target of neutralizing 95% of all Shaheds and other long-range attack drones launched by Russia.
The air force data, compiled by Come Back Alive, a Ukrainian military charity, shows the interception rate that month was just over 85%. With Russia's land campaign having slowed to a crawl, Fedorov said tightening air defences could be vital to Ukraine's ability to survive another year of war.
According to Reuters interviews with a dozen Ukrainian officials, manufacturers and soldiers involved in the drive, the campaign is yielding gradual results. Fedorov himself said this month that the interception rate had gone up to 90%.
Reuters couldn't independently verify the data on drone launches and interceptions. The Russian defence ministry didn't respond to a request for comment for this article.
Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians and said the purpose of its air assaults is to degrade Ukraine's military. Ukraine has also fired thousands of long-range drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, at targets in Russia including energy facilities.
The Ukrainians involved in the interception drive cautioned, however, that getting a nationwide system involving thousands of air defence teams up to speed would take months and that gains could prove short-lived in the technological race with Russia.
The first interceptor to destroy a Shahed in early 2025, for example, became ineffective after four months because the Russians realised they could outrun it by increasing the Shahed's speed from 170 km per hour to more than 200 kph, according to Taras Tymochko, a specialist in the technology at Come Back Alive.
As a consequence, interceptors - which must travel faster than targets to catch them - have had to be upgraded to fly at up to 300 kph, said Tymochko.
Now, about 15-20% of the Shaheds sent by Russia are powered by jet engines, rather than the usual propeller ones, allowing them to hit speeds of 400 kph, according to Yuriy Cherevashenko, a senior commander in Ukraine's air force.
Fedorov told Reuters that the solution to this problem lay in jet-powered interceptor drones, which he said Ukrainian manufacturers were currently developing.
SHAHED V INTERCEPTOR: BATTLE OF LOW-COST DRONES
Shaheds imported by Russia from Iran first appeared in Ukrainian skies soon after Moscow's 2022 invasion. The craft, which resemble miniature planes with their pointy noses and triangular wings, quickly became notorious for the high-pitched whine of their engines, earning them the nickname "mopeds".
Now, Russia makes thousands a month in its own factories and they make up the bulk of its fleet of long-range drones.
"As Russia builds out more and more of these UAVs, they represent an existential threat to Ukraine," said Samuel Bendett, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think-tank.
"Therefore taking them down is of the utmost importance."
The costs have not been made public, but U.S. think-tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated last year that the Russian Shahed models cost $35,000 apiece to produce.
By comparison, each Ukrainian interceptor drone costs several thousand dollars, with the cheapest models costing less than $1,500, according to manufacturers. They are typically 3D-printed plastic domes containing a brick of explosive and powered by four small propellers.
For Ukrainian interceptor crews, work in the field can be frustrating.
The soldiers have a window of only a few minutes from the moment a Shahed pops up on their radar before it moves out of range. They must direct an interceptor towards the dot until they spot the Shahed through their drone's camera, before flying at the target and detonating.
Being able to spot a target is highly dependent on weather conditions: "We had a night when we had 10 launches and we didn't find a single (Shahed)," said Borys.
He left his TV job to enlist after the invasion and now commands a platoon of three interceptor crews in the 420th Unmanned Systems battalion. The 47-year-old asked for his full name to be withheld in line with standard Ukrainian military practice.
After fog descended on a cold March night, the soldiers in Kharkiv region were forced to abandon their mission – they couldn't see anything through their drones' onboard camera.
Fedorov said Ukraine was now working on automated drone guidance systems to allow them to be more effective in adverse weather conditions.
COMMANDER: WE HAVE CHANCE TO BEAT SHAHED
Swarmed by over 500 drones on some nights, Ukraine has had to quickly invent ways to defend its cities, power grid and arms factories as inexpensively as possible. It has a nationwide, multi-layered system to down drones with equipment including electronic warfare, interceptor drones, pickup trucks with heavy machine guns, helicopters and fighter jets.
Cherevashenko, the air force commander, said the military was building on the lessons learned during Russia's drone campaigns of last summer and winter to defeat the Shahed.
"We have a great opportunity to do this."
The effectiveness of electronic warfare systems, which disrupt the Shahed's navigation, varies, but on some nights they can neutralize nearly half of the drones launched during an attack, air force spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat said.
Interceptor drones currently bring down 40% of Russia's Shahed-style weapons and other long-range attack UAVs, according to Cherevashenko, up from around 25% in winter.
Ukraine's F-16 fighter jets are also involved, and can each down as many as 10 Shaheds a night, Ihnat told Reuters.
Cherevashenko said one of the major challenges was Russia's use of AI to create fresh approaches and flight plans, making it hard for Ukraine to keep up.
He also highlighted the use of "mesh networks", where a group of drones act as signal transmitters to one another in grids spanning over 120 km, allowing them to defeat Ukrainian navigation jamming.
On the plus side, Ukrainian interception efforts were receiving a boost from an unlikely source: remote working.
Some top pilots now fly interceptors remotely via internet link in multiple regions across Ukraine, switching instantly between video feeds, Cherevashenko said. Support staff on the ground set up the drones and signal antennae, but the pilot can be anywhere.
(Reporting by Max Hunder; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Mike Collett-White and Pravin Char)
