Japan signs deal for Ukrainian SkyFall interceptor drones

Japan’s Ministry of Defense has signed a contract to buy interceptor drones from Ukrainian manufacturer SkyFall, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said, making Japan one of the first countries outside Europe to order Ukrainian drones built to shoot down Russian attack drones.

Koizumi announced the deal at a press briefing but did not say which SkyFall model Japan ordered, how many drones it is buying, what the contract is worth or when deliveries will begin.

“The Japanese Ministry of Defense has already signed a contract to purchase interceptor drones from the Ukrainian company SkyFall. We are currently working to ensure their delivery as soon as possible,” said Koizumi.

Koizumi also pointed to the speed of Ukraine’s development cycle, noting that drones with updated features reach Ukrainian units every two to three weeks based on battlefield feedback.

SkyFall builds the P1-SUN family of interceptors, small, fast drones that Ukrainian crews fly into Russian Shahed-type attack drones to destroy them. The company says Ukrainian forces shot down more than 3,500 Shaheds with P1-SUN interceptors over six months. Its newest version, the P1-SUN JetKiller, was unveiled in July at the Farnborough International Airshow to counter Russia’s faster jet-powered drones. SkyFall says the JetKiller reaches 370 km/h (230 mph), flies up to 30 km (18 miles), operates as high as 9,000 meters (29,500 feet) and carries a 500-gram (1.1-pound) warhead. Variants are offered with day or night cameras and with an AI module for automatic target detection and lock-on.

In late September, SkyFall released footage it said showed a JetKiller destroying a Russian Geran-5 jet-powered drone. The company has said it is aiming for a production rate of 50,000 interceptors a month and signed an agreement with Airbus Defence and Space in June to link the P1-SUN family to Airbus’s air command-and-control system for European air defense.

Japan has been moving quickly to field interceptor drones of its own. Its Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency launched a rapid acquisition program in June aimed at countering long-range one-way attack drones such as the Shahed, and received proposals from 38 companies. After the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force tested four candidate models between July 15 and Aug. 6, the agency signed a mass-production contract on Aug. 25 with Japanese firm Terra Drone for its Terra B1 interceptor.