Iranian drones and missiles have been slamming into cities across the Middle East for three days. Gulf states with some of the best air defense arsenals are discovering the difficulty in dealing with cheap, slow drones arriving in waves. A single THAAD anti-ballistic missile interceptor costs $13 million. The Shahed drone costs roughly $20,000.
Ukraine has learned this lesson over four years of daily combat. Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s Minister of Industry, explained it to me:
“All of Iran’s neighbors face the same two threats: missiles and drones. Intercepting them with traditional missile systems is extremely expensive. In Ukraine, we learned how to shift that equation. We developed drone interceptors that are far cheaper and far more efficient for this type of threat. Today, we are able to take down more than 90% of the Shahed drones targeting our country, with the most effective systems reaching around 88% efficiency. That’s a dramatic improvement compared to the early stages of the war. One drone interceptor can cost below $5,000. That fundamentally changes the economics of air defense.”
Ukraine’s drone defense began in the autumn of 2022, when Russia started launching Iranian-designed Shahed drones at cities and critical infrastructure. The early raids were modest by current standards, perhaps a few dozen drones at a time. But Ukrainian defenses were oriented around conventional antiaircraft missiles designed for jets and cruise missiles.
In 2025 alone, Russia launched more than 54,000 Shahed-type drones against Ukraine. That’s an average of roughly 150 per day, for an entire year. But the volume was only half the problem. Russia also adapted constantly. Shahed variants began flying higher and faster, rendering some ground-based interception methods less effective. Decoy drones, cheap airframes designed to exhaust interceptor stocks, were mixed in with real warheads.
In response, Ukraine has built a layered defense system. One assembled from a mixture of advanced technology and improvisation. Detection comes first: thousands of ordinary mobile phones have been fixed to telephone poles across the country, listening around the clock. Computers analyze the sound of drone engines that resemble lawnmowers, and calculate where each one is heading. Thousands of civilian volunteers supplement this effort by calling in anything they see or hear in the sky.
Once a drone swarm is tracked, response teams spring into action. National Guard members who hold civilian jobs during the day rush to flight paths in pickup trucks mounted with heavy machine guns. In rural areas along common drone routes, volunteer brigades armed with rifles form a permanent presence. Electronic jamming vehicles drive into the path of incoming drones to scramble their navigation. At critical sites, heavier weapons take over: Germany’s Gepard antiaircraft cannon shreds drones at a fraction of the cost of a missile, while the Skynex system adds further range. Teams with shoulder-fired missiles are also dispatched along predicted routes. Ukraine has even sent up vintage Yak 52 training planes, with gunners firing rifles from open cockpits to reach targets flying too high for ground teams.
KEIR STARMER SPITES THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP ON IRAN
The centerpiece, though, is a small, cheap Ukrainian-built drone designed to destroy Shaheds in midair. The technology is new, and while its effectiveness is still being studied, Ukrainian officials say it has shown 68-70% success rates and, as of 2026, accounts for 30% of anti-Shahed drone kills. “We now have the full cycle in place — from development to production to deployment. More than ten Ukrainian producers are manufacturing drone interceptors, and only one of them is a co-production with a foreign partner,” Kamyshin says.
As cheap attack drones proliferate across the world’s conflict zones, Ukraine’s operational experience is becoming one of the most valuable commodities in modern warfare. Western militaries are adapting, but they are doing so largely through Ukraine’s experience. They should take advantage of the great innovation Kyiv and its people have proven they possess.
