In a first, Ukraine’s drone force launches interceptor drone from USV to destroy Shahed

MILAN — Ukraine has said that its elite drone force has destroyed a Russian Shahed unmanned aerial vehicle using an interceptor drone launched from an unmanned surface vessel (USV), marking the first downing of its kind in this new era of drone-on-drone warfare.

Footage published on Sunday on the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s official X account captured the milestone, which the MoD said was carried out during combat missions at sea by the USV division within the 412th Brigade Nemesis. 

The military unit is part of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and specializes in detecting and neutralizing enemy weapons and personnel using unmanned aerial vehicles and innovative tactics. 

Screengrab from footage of a Ukrainian interceptor drone launched from an unmanned surface vessel published on April 19 by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. (Ukraine MoD)

Sam Bendett, an unmanned systems expert and close observer of the conflict in Ukraine, said the success of this new sea-air integration setup will create further headaches for Russian kamikaze drones. 

“This capability adds another protection layer for Ukrainians against incoming Russian long-range drones – when integrated with the rest of the defensive systems, it makes Shaheds [even] more vulnerable,” Bendett, an advisor on Russian military technology at the U.S.-based Center for Naval Analyses thinktank, told Breaking Defense.

Bendett added that based on available open-source data, Russia has yet to achieve anything similar. 

While the type of USV used in the mission was not specified, the war-torn country’s increasing reliance on lower-cost naval drones to target bigger, more expensive enemy targets at sea has proven successful. Counter-drone interception is also among the areas of expertise Ukraine has offered to Middle East countries whose critical infrastructure faces similar obstacles in the Strait of Hormuz. 

“The vulnerability of traditional naval forces [today] to unmanned systems attacks there [Strait of Hormuz] mirrors the challenges Ukraine faced in the Black Sea — its experience using USVs to neutralize the adversary’s advantage at sea offers a replicable model for countering asymmetric threats in any maritime environment,” the MoD wrote in a statement published Monday.