Everyone has failed in the fight against jet drones, but first and foremost, the state, says Lutsenko.

According to the commander of the drone unit, the bureaucracy should have responded earlier.

Recently, the Russian occupiers have been increasingly relying on their modernized drones, launching them, in particular, against Kyiv. This has caused hours-long air raid sirens, destruction, and casualties. UNIAN spoke with Igor Lutsenko, commander of drone units and founder of the Aerial Reconnaissance Support Center, about how we should combat this new enemy threat.

Artistic collage depicting military drones, explosions, and a trophy, symbolizing the intersection of warfare and competition.

Why don’t our existing countermeasures shoot down even the old gasoline-powered Shaheds in the center of Kyiv?

There’s a caveat: intercepting aircraft directly over Kyiv, or indeed over populated areas in general, is prohibited. There’s a rule. If it breaks through over Kyiv, it shouldn’t be shot down by interceptors; instead, it should be attacked with anti-aircraft guns and missiles.

When can we expect to have a sufficient number of interceptors to protect Kyiv?

Our manufacturers have to produce them. It’s a lengthy process. And the jet engines are a particularly critical bottleneck, so it could take months. It won’t happen in a few weeks.

Russian drones are approaching speeds of up to 800 kilometers per hour. When will we be able to mass-produce interceptors against these drones? And what will it take?

If we do everything very quickly, by Western standards, it would take about six months. I hope our manufacturers will take into account the realities of war, make every effort, and get it done much faster.

There are certain standard procedures by which this happens. A batch is ordered, then it’s assembled, then the devices are configured and tested. The main thing is until these jet engines are manufactured—I’m afraid that’s the longest wait. Specifically, until they’re all manufactured.

Who exactly is responsible for the development and mass production of these interceptors—the government, private manufacturers, or the military? So, who should society turn to with this question?

Each is responsible for their own area. The state was supposed to receive intelligence that the Russians would be producing a certain number of jet-powered drones on a certain date in a certain month. This information was supposed to be reported by certain intelligence agencies. After that, the General Staff, together with the Ministry of Defense, was supposed to prepare an order for interceptors with specific technical specifications and in the required quantity.

What’s really holding us back from speeding up this process? Is it money, components, production capacity, or bureaucracy? And which of these can be resolved quickly, and which can’t?

The bureaucracy should have responded sooner. That is, six months ago, a year ago, we should have had a sufficient number of models certified and capable of shooting down jet interceptors.

These could have been small missiles on carriers, jet interceptors, and perhaps some other means. But we didn’t have any of that, at least not several months ago, when this “rain” of rockets began.

As for the manufacturers, it’s basically the same thing. They’re smart people; they should have developed everything long ago and just waited for the government to come along and buy it. But no. Because reactive technologies aren’t that simple.

Roughly speaking, everyone screwed up. Private producers are the least affected. They’re doing the best they can. The state—in this case, the state mechanism—could have moved faster. The state bears primary responsibility. Specifically, for formulating a request and identifying the need for specific resources in a timely manner. Clearly, this need wasn’t formulated as quickly as would have been hoped.

Mobile teams were a response to the slow Shahed missiles. How outdated is this approach compared to jet-powered drones, and what should replace it? And are mobile teams even sufficient today?

Mobile groups can’t help us much right now. Fighting the Shahed is so yesterday. What’s needed now are crews who can remotely control jet interceptors. What’s needed now is a missile defense system that can shoot down jets with relatively inexpensive missiles.

All these solutions exist, half-finished. The government should simply be running around shouting, “Hurry up! What do you need? What’s stopping you? Do it!” The government didn’t run around shouting. That’s 100%. That didn’t happen.

So, now mobile fire teams continue to try to shoot them down, but they are not succeeding because their weapons are not up to the task of fighting the current Russian “Shaheds”?

They leave and stand there. There’s no one there and nothing to do anything with. Right now, the only thing that can operate in this format is a fighter with a MANPADS, sitting somewhere high up on the roof, waiting for a Shahed rocket to fly past.

But these are expensive, even more expensive than the Shaheds. But that’s not the problem; the problem is that they don’t exist in the quantities we need.

(C)UNIAN 2026