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The grinding Ukraine war has seen a rise in hit-to-kill drone interceptions of other drones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
Kyiv and Moscow are increasingly using drones to take out enemy systems above the battlefield.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
This new tactic is pushing Ukraine to develop drones specifically for interceptor roles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
In the contested skies above Ukraine, a new kind of warfare is rapidly emerging as drones are increasingly sent on new attack missions. Their targets aren’t armored vehicles or fighting positions \u2014 they are other drones.<\/p>\n
Combat footage from the war in Ukraine has repeatedly captured these hit-to-kill intercepts in which a cheap drone slams into another unmanned aircraft. This practice is a cost-effective air-defense option that both the Ukrainians and Russians are using and intently pursuing.<\/p>\n
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation, posted on Telegram in April that his country was on the hunt for interceptor drone solutions<\/a> to shoot down Russian surveillance assets, the front-line eyes for strike drones and Russian artillery, “without wasting air defense assets.”<\/p>\n Nataliia Kushnerska, a senior executive in Ukraine’s defense industry, told Business Insider that using uncrewed systems in this way “marks the emergence of an entirely new segment of modern warfare \u2014 drone-on-drone combat.”<\/p>\n Drones have dominated the battlefield<\/a>\u00a0throughout much of the Ukraine war, being used for land, sea, and air missions. Cheap first-person view (FPV) drones are frequently used to carry out pinpoint strikes<\/a> on enemy armor and troop positions, while larger systems\u00a0collect intelligence.<\/p>\nA new tactic in the evolving drone war<\/h2>\n