Ukraine Builds Layered Air Defenses With AI, Cheap Drones and Civilian Teams

This week, as air raid warnings wailed in the distance, Kyiv held a funeral for two sisters.

Liubava, 12, and her sister Vira, 17, were among 24 civilians killed earlier this month when a Russian missile reduced their apartment block to rubble. The sisters had already lost their father, who was fighting on the front line. Their mother, now the sole survivor, is grieving.

This tragedy illustrates the human cost of Russia’s largest sustained aerial assault to date, which involved 1,500 drones and 56 missiles fired at Ukraine within 48 hours.

The death toll could have been higher. Ukraine’s air defenses prevented additional casualties, with President Volodymyr Zelensky reporting that 94% of Russian long-range drones and 73% of missiles were intercepted. By comparison, on May 14, 2025, Ukrainian forces shot down 55% of Russian drones launched nationwide. Ukraine is improving its air defense capabilities.

“We are now, unfortunately, the best in the world,” said Lt. Col. Yuriy Myronenko, an inspector general at Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence. He acknowledged that shooting down Russia’s ballistic missiles “is not so easy.”

More than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has developed an increasingly sophisticated, layered air defense system.

At the outset of the war, Ukraine relied on aging Soviet-era weapons. Western allies later bolstered its defenses with expensive, advanced systems such as Patriot air defense missiles.

Ukraine has also developed indigenous solutions, ranging from mobile fire teams operating heavy machine guns on trucks to cheap, mass-produced interceptor drones.

Embracing innovation and technology gives Ukraine an advantage. Central to its air defenses is software that tracks every glide bomb, missile and drone launched by Russia.

Sky Map employs radars, thousands of sensors, video feeds and artificial intelligence to detect threats and direct air defenses.

Initially, Ukraine relied on a network of mobile phones mounted on telegraph poles to detect the sound of approaching drones. The system now uses more sophisticated sensors.

The United States uses Sky Map to protect one of its bases in the Middle East.

One weapon, more than any other, is helping Ukrainian forces down Russian drones: cheap interceptor drones.

These interceptor drones are shaped like large bullets and propelled by four rotors. Ukraine now produces more than 1,000 such drones daily. In March 2025, they destroyed more than 30,000 Russian drones, according to Ukraine’s air force.

In a field outside Kherson, Ukraine’s Marine Corps Unmanned Systems Regiment demonstrated one of these interceptors in action.

Launched from a static position, the P1-SUN interceptor can reach speeds exceeding 300 km/h (186 mph) and has a range of more than 30 km. The unit had just completed a mission to destroy Russian drones.

Commander Welkos calls the P1-SUN a “very serious weapon.” “It shows how quickly we can adapt, how we can hold the line and how much we can develop,” he said. The P1-SUN is 3D-printed and costs about $1,000 (£750), significantly less than the $50,000 delta-winged Shahed one-way attack drones it is designed to destroy.

Private companies are also integrating into the air defense network.

“We need to cover all of Ukraine and see all the targets. So accordingly, we use all the resources we have,” explained Myronenko, who oversees the initiative.

Twenty-five companies have already signed up to the program. Their incentive is clear: protect their factories and infrastructure. Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid last winter left millions without power.

Carmine Sky is one of the private companies now providing air defenses for other private-sector clients. It has built a network of towers equipped with remotely controlled machine guns in the Kharkiv region, near Russia’s border.

At Carmine Sky’s control room in a building basement, rows of screens display Ukraine’s Sky Map as it tracks Russian drones and jets.

The operators are ordinary civilians — mothers, taxi drivers and veterans. Each has been vetted and trained for a few weeks before being permitted to operate one of the remotely controlled guns.

Ruslan, the company’s spokesman, said their job “is not difficult.” Operating the remote machine guns to shoot down drones “is like a computer game – just like an Xbox or PlayStation,” he said.

Ruslan described their role as a “supplement to the state’s air defence structure.”

“We’re integrated into the military system,” he said. “This is not the Wild West, so we follow the instructions and commands of the military.”

Ruslan noted other advantages of private sector involvement: “we can scale much faster than the public sector.” Although still early, these private companies have already shot down dozens of Russian drones.

Ukraine has also intensified its own strikes on Russia. Recent attacks have sparked massive fires at Russian oil refineries across the country and have reached major cities such as St. Petersburg and Moscow, prompting the Kremlin to scale back its World War Two Victory Day parade in May due to fear of Ukrainian attack.

Both sides are now racing to innovate as quickly as possible to gain an advantage. Russia has been developing faster jet-powered drones and is using decoy drones to pinpoint the locations of Ukraine’s air defenses.

Significant gaps remain in Ukraine’s air defenses.

At one end, Ukraine lacks highly sophisticated, expensive missile interceptors. It still needs U.S.-made Patriot missiles, which are the only effective weapon against Russian ballistic missiles. With the U.S. war in Iran, they are in short supply.

Closer to the front line, both Ukraine and Russia have struggled to counter the threat of small, prolific first-person-view (FPV) drones, which operators guide remotely to their targets. These drones remain the leading cause of casualties.

Despite technical advances, nets above roads, rifles and shotguns remain the last line of defense.

Defending Ukraine’s skies will never be easy. President Zelensky has warned that Russia’s mass attacks are designed to overwhelm its air defenses.

By launching hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, it is inevitable that some will penetrate Ukraine’s defenses, meaning more tragic deaths like those of sisters Liubava and Vira.

Additional reporting by Firle Davies, Anastasiia Levchenko and Mariana Matveichuk.