Can Ukraine help defeat Iran’s drone swarms?

In 2014 iran displayed a new drone, the Touphan, or Typhoon, a small, lightweight aircraft with delta wings. Like Chekov’s gun, introduced in the first act, it stood in the background—until 2019, when it, or something like it, crashed into two Saudi Arabian oil refineries. Those suicide drones, or one-way attack (owa) munitions in military jargon, were the nucleus of what, a few years later, became the Shahed. After its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 Russia bought and improved them (as the Geran-2). It has since churned out tens of thousands to hurl at Ukraine. Now they are returning to the Middle East, en masse, causing a headache for America and its allies.

Iran has fired more than 2,000 drones at Israel, Arab states, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Cyprus and Turkey in the past week. Most of those directed at Israel have been shot down during their long flights. But at shorter ranges, they have proved accurate and effective. On February 28th a drone strike killed six American troops in Kuwait. Satellite images suggest Iran has also hit a tpy-2 radar, part of a thaad missile-defence system in Jordan, putting the vital battery out of action. And they have struck American embassies and consulates, as well as oil and gas facilities.

Shahed-type drones travel far more slowly than ballistic missiles and carry much smaller warheads. But they have many advantages. They are cheaper than ballistic missiles, which cost Russia $1m-15m each, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an American think-tank. By contrast a Shahed-136 produced in Russia is thought to cost around $55,000, though this can rise above $100,000 depending on its configuration.

These drones can also be produced in much larger numbers than missiles. Ukrainian intelligence believes Russia has the capacity to make as many as 500 of them a day. That quantity has a quality of its own. Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank in London, has noted that the first loss of a Patriot air-defence system in Ukraine came about when it was overwhelmed by 75 Gerans—despite the fact that all but two were shot down.

They can be launched from lorries, which are harder to detect than the silos or big launchers used for ballistic missiles. That gives Iran flexibility: a drone that hit a British airbase on Cyprus on March 2nd is thought to have been fired from Lebanon by Hizbullah, according to Israeli military sources. And their low flight path can make them hard to detect. The Cyprus drone was detected late, possibly because it was skimming low over the sea.

Intercepting a Shahed-type drone is a different challenge to parrying a ballistic missile. It would be overkill to use a Patriot or thaad battery, whose scarce interceptors need to be conserved for ballistic missiles, though they have been pressed into service nonetheless. Israel has tried using its lower-end Iron Dome system, but it is optimised to stop rockets, which move differently.

The current approach relies heavily on warplanes. These can fire air-to-air missiles, which are cheaper than Patriot and thaad interceptors, though still expensive, or rockets, which are much more cost effective. American jets are now firing apkws laser-guided rockets, which can also be carried in greater numbers than air-to-air missiles. But this approach is still tying up a significant number of American fighter jets, which can no longer go on offensive missions.

There are various ways around the problem. In 2024 Iranian drones launched by Hizbullah from Lebanon caused a number of Israeli casualties. Iron Dome proved insufficient. One response was to keep Apache attack helicopters hovering over the border, using their machine-guns to shoot down drones. Ground-based Vulcan m61 anti-aircraft cannons which had been mothballed years before, were brought back into service.

These methods had only limited success. The new Iron Beam interceptor laser that Israel had been testing was rushed into service and proved much more successful, but Israel had only one of these. The Gulf states have none. Moreover, lasers may be the future of drone interception, but they need clear weather to be effective—a particular problem in the dusty and sandy Gulf. They are also bulky and heavy. Israel is working on an airborne version which could operate from above the clouds, but that is years away.

Another route is to attack drone factories, stockpiles and launchers at source, what military planners call “left of launch”. Going after production lines is easiest, since launchers are mobile and can be concealed. America and Israel have clearly enjoyed some success in this regard. On March 5th Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of America’s Central Command, said that Iran’s drone launch rates were down 83% from the start of the conflict.

The country with the most experience of detecting and intercepting Shaheds is Ukraine. On March 5th Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said that America had asked him to help with the drone problem and he had promised to send experts to the Middle East. Ukraine has developed a wide range of techniques, from jamming to machine guns mounted on lorries. Beginning in 2024 the country has pioneered an altogether new and increasingly successful system.

It uses so-called “first-person view” (fpv) interceptor drones: small, fast and extremely manoeuvrable craft that either ram or blow up the Shaheds. Newer ones are flown up by a pilot but can perform the final intercept autonomously using ai. “A Shahed should be intercepted with something at least ten times cheaper,” says a senior Ukrainian commander. “If you keep using expensive missiles against cheap drones, you are bound to lose.” The current leading interceptor is thought to cost around $2,500 per shot, around 20 times cheaper than its target.

Ukraine has also begun deploying drone interceptors at sea, mounting them on small uncrewed boats. The boats operate in packs, sharing radar coverage. When a drone is detected, a hatch flips open on the deck, releasing the interceptor (see video). Pilots guide them remotely using video feeds relayed over a Starlink satellite network. The technology was first pioneered on the Black Sea, in waters near Odessa, in response to new Russian tactics to attack from the sea to avoid detection.

The idea of an offshore naval drone-picket has obvious relevance for any Arab state watching Shaheds arrive over the Persian Gulf. Several have already expressed interest, says Oleg Rogynskyy, the chief executive of Uforce, the company behind the system: “The minute we get the political green light, you’ll see tonnes of our boats being loaded onto cargo planes bound for the Middle East.”

In January Ukraine destroyed a record 1,704 Shaheds, half of the total launched that month. Of those, 70% were intercepted by fpvs. Operator proficiency remains important: a handful of units were responsible for the bulk of kills. What Ukraine can offer partners, therefore, is not just hardware but also people and experience. None of it will come for free.

Before the latest escalation in the Middle East, Ukrainian military-technology firms had begun cautiously expanding exports. The Economist understands that Mr Zelensky has now halted those licences, much to the chagrin of the companies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Ukrainian president is using the leverage to press partners for other air-defence assets in return, in particular increasingly scarce interceptors used by the Patriot system. On March 5th Mr Zelensky claimed that more than 800 of these had been used up in the Middle East in three days—more, he said, than Ukraine had received in the entire war.

Ukraine has long warned that the military partnership between Russia and Iran would cause problems well beyond its borders. “For Iran, Ukraine was never the enemy—only a testing ground,” says a Ukrainian drone-industry insider. “They had no ideological quarrel with us. They came to learn how to fly, how to strike, how to defeat Western equipment. We warned about this for years. But no-one listened.” They are listening now. ■