Ukraine Hurries to Build Defenses Against Russia’s Jet-Powered Drones

In a field in central Ukraine, an experimental drone zoomed into the sky as engineers demonstrated its potential to intercept Russia’s jet-powered attack drones, which are tormenting the country.

The prototype, called a Zirka, reached a top speed of 280 miles an hour as its propellers whirred frantically. Not fast enough, the testers acknowledged.

“We still need to find a counter-jet solution,” said Lika Volovych, a manager at the Zirka’s manufacturer Noctis, as she watched it buzz high above.

On the horizon, black smoke rose from a Russian drone strike on a nearby city.

Ukraine is rushing to find an answer to Russia’s new generation of jet-powered drones and cheap cruise missiles. Moscow is using them, together with ballistic and cruise missiles, to pummel Ukrainian cities in an aerial campaign that is threatening to change the balance of the war.

Disruptions to the SpaceX Starlink network could add an extra complication for some interceptors. On Wednesday, Ukraine said SpaceX had capped the speed of drone connections, disabling certain missions. Some high-speed interceptors that shoot down Russian jet drones were unable to function, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in Brussels on Friday. “It was very painful and very unpleasant,” he said. Still, most interceptors, including upcoming models, don’t use the network, their manufacturers said.

While Russia’s army is struggling on the front lines, Moscow is trying to bring Ukraine to its knees by battering its economy, energy infrastructure and civilian morale.

For months, Ukraine has been desperately short of Patriot interceptors to shoot down ballistic missiles.

Now it is also short of defenses against jet-powered drones that can fly faster and higher than previous...

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The WSJ is an interesting rag. Given the bombing going on these days in this horrid mess, nothing like publishing "Zirka’s manufacturer Noctis" because actually painting a target on a company is so old-fashioned.

Looking into this here in October, one finds press releases from any number of sources from January 2026. They read quite like business PR, though today's WSJ articles notes ten months later that the PR and reality are not quite meeting in the same place.

Or, as the article says, "Not fast enough, the testers acknowledged."

WIKI

Originally called the Sidewinder 1, the first live firing was on 3 September 1952. The missile intercepted a drone for the first time on 11 September 1953.

The AIM-9B is a very limited weapon, but it had no serious competitors and counters when it was introduced, causing it to be adopted by the USAF and NATO as a standard weapon, with around 80,000 units being produced from 1958 to 1962.

it achieved the world’s first successful kill with an air-to-air missile, when Taiwanese F-86Fs shot down Communist Chinese MiG-15s using AIM-9Bs supplied and fitted by the U.S. Navy

AIM-9E “Echo” (USAF)

A magnesium fluoride seeker dome was introduced

The most significant design change was the addition of cooling for the PbS detector, adding Peltier (thermoelectric) cooling, giving the advantage of unlimited cooling when positioned on the launch rail, but is only active when electrical power is present.

licensed production was given to West Germany and they would produce around 15,000 units....Unnoticed improvements include solid state electronics (instead of vacuum tubes), carbon dioxide seeker cooling, a new nose dome and superior optical filtering. Conversions were done to European AIM-9Bs to upgrade them to the FGW.2 standard.

A 46% hit rate with the AIM-9G during Operation Linebackers I and II in 1972 was achieved

the AIM-9L (”Lima”) model which was in full production in 1977....was the first “all-aspect” Sidewinder with the ability to attack from all directions, including head-on, which had a dramatic effect on close-in combat tactics....Its first use in a large-scale conflict was by the United Kingdom during the 1982 Falklands War. In this campaign the “Lima” reportedly achieved kills from 80% of launches

The AIM-9X entered service in November 2003 with the USAF (the lead platform was the F-15C) and the USN (the lead platform was the F/A-18C) and is a substantial upgrade to the Sidewinder family featuring an imaging infrared 128×128 element focal-plane array (FPA) seeker with claimed 90° off-boresight capability, compatibility with helmet-mounted displays such as the new U.S. Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS)....Using the JHMCS, a pilot can point the AIM-9X missile’s seeker and “lock on” by simply looking at a target

The AIM-9X also includes an internal cooling system, eliminating the need to use launch-rail nitrogen bottles (U.S. Navy and Marines) or internal argon bottles (USAF)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder

Originally called the Sidewinder 1

The price difference between the Geran jet Drone($80,000) vs the sidewinder($400,000+) is too great.

Ukraine is using drones costing $3 to $10 thousand to shoot down propeller Geran drones($30-$80 thousand)

A Geran-2 (or Geran jet/propeller attack drone) costs roughly $20,000 to $80,000 (similar to the Shahed-136 baseline of about $30,000), while an AIM-9 Sidewinder (such as the AIM-9X variant) costs between $381,000 and over $980,000 per unit depending on the specific block, contract, and support package

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