In the face of hundreds of Russian drones launched daily on Ukraine, Kyiv has opened its air defense to private companies to ensure their own security, thus easing the burden on the military, says a senior Ukrainian military official in an interview with AFP.
“The idea is to allow companies to protect themselves against aerial attacks at their own expense and with the help of their own employees,” explains 48-year-old Yuri Myronenko, a general inspector at the Ministry of Defense and the main initiator of this project which has already enabled the downing of Russian drones.
Since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has extensively used long-range Shahed drones, originally of Iranian design but now mass-produced in Russia.
Inexpensive yet devastating, these devices target residential areas and essential infrastructures, sometimes hundreds of kilometers away from the front lines.
The largest attack since 2022 occurred at the end of March, involving nearly 1000 drones launched in 24 hours, in addition to missiles.
Despite being quite effective, the Ukrainian air defense system, which includes thousands of mobile anti-drone teams, is still not enough to cover the entire country.
16 companies have already obtained the necessary authorizations, with several of them having already begun operations, according to Lieutenant Colonel Myronenko, a former drone unit commander.
Under the relentless attacks, Ukraine has already developed around fifty interceptor models, a domain that did not even exist a year ago.
The fierce competition is driving manufacturers to quickly improve efficiency while reducing costs, sometimes to less than $1000 per unit, making them “affordable,” according to Mr. Myronenko.
In the long term, private groups could even acquire weapons to shoot down cruise missiles, for example, portable surface-to-air systems.
The main goal set by the new Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov for this year is to “detect 100% of aerial targets,” drones, and missiles, and “shoot down 95%” of them, compared to the current rate of about 80%.
According to Myronenko, this goal is “absolutely realistic” given the explosion of the production of interceptors delivered by the thousands to the army each month.
