NATO is looking to Ukraine for ways to kill drones without wasting expensive missiles

NATO militaries are seeking air defense tools that are more affordable than expensive missiles. They are turning to cheap interceptor drones, weapons increasingly popular in Ukraine. Ukraine has used the interceptors to fend off worsening Russian drone attacks. NATO militaries are looking for cheaper ways to defeat hostile drones without having to expend vastly more expensive missiles. The answer, it seems, is in Ukraine. Ukrainian forces are using domestically produced interceptor drones daily to bring down deadly Russian drones, with units regularly sharing footage of the high-speed aerial chases. The interceptor drones can be mass-produced, which is crucial for Ukraine as worsening Russian bombardments that sometimes include hundreds of drones and missiles in a single night put stress on the country's deeply strained air defense network. NATO is taking note, with officials identifying interceptor drones not just as a cheap way to fill a capability gap - air defense against relatively inexpensive attack drones - but also as an early indication of where warfare is going. Some allied countries are developing systems, while others are rushing to buy them at scale. "Technology is evolving really, really rapidly," British Army Brig. Gen. Chris Gent, the deputy chief of staff for transformation and integration at NATO Allied Land Command, said at a recent training event in Poland. "It's a race to keep up." The rise of the interceptor Interceptor drones emerged this year as a priority defense investment for Ukraine as it looks for ways to stay ahead of Russia's growing drone production and worsening nightly attacks without totally depleting its surface-to-air missile stocks or breaking the bank to take out cheap yet inexpensive threats. Ukraine's defense industry produces hundreds of interceptor drones each day, some of which cost as little as $2,500. That's a fraction of the cost of a standard Russian one-way attack drone , estimated to be worth $35,000 on the low end. They can carry small warheads and are designed to directly strike their targets midair or explode nearby for a proximity kill. The interceptor drones have provided Kyiv with a significant increase in air defense options. They can reach higher and faster-moving targets than the truck-mounted machine guns that Ukrainian soldiers had long relied on to shoot down low-flying Russian airborne targets, and they allow the country to hold its critical surface-to-air missiles in reserve for higher-end threats. Seeing how effective interceptor drones have been, NATO is now racing to develop and field its own. That push took on new urgency in September after Russian drones strayed into Polish and Romanian airspace, prompting Western forces to scramble fighter jets. The incursions - and NATO's scramble to respond - raised questions about how the alliance should handle cheap drones, and whether it's sustainable to launch fighter jets armed with expensive missiles for every airspace violation. While NATO is still flying fighter patrols, Poland and Romania have purchased and are deploying the American-made Merops system , which consists of an interceptor drone that has already taken down more than...

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