Український компонент сучасної архітектури протиповітряної оборони: політичні передумови для реагування на масові дронові та гібридні дроново-ракетні загрози.

Еволюція повітряних загроз вимагає докорінних змін у підходах в застосуванні протиповітряної оборони. Європейську систему, яка була створена в епоху обмежених за кількістю і співмірних за вартістю загроз з повітря, необхідно переосмислити.

Далі – мовою оригіналу (англ.мова).

Problem Statement

The legacy air defence paradigm was designed to counter primarily aircraft and cruise and ballistic missiles – high-speed targets that require powerful active sensors for detection and stationary anti-aircraft missile systems for interception. However, modern warfare distinguished by massive drone employment and integrated drone-missile offensives, have rendered the classical air defence paradigm economically unsustainable and operationally invalid in the long run. This change in the nature of aerial threats has created a significant gap in the European air defence shield conceived in an era when aerial threats were limited in number and comparable in cost to defensive measures, necessitating a paradigm shift from object-based to territorial air defence paradigm.

The Creepie Cost of Air Raid

The current air defence challenge stems from a fundamental mismatch between defensive capabilities and emerging threat profiles. Recent evidence from the Russo-Ukrainian war demonstrates that adversaries can now achieve strategic objectives through saturating attacks that combine low-cost drones (including drone decoys) with conventional missiles, overwhelming or exhausting air defence systems both operationally and economically. 

Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Russia has launched over 19,000 missiles against Ukraine, including more than 14,700 one-way attack drones. 

The scale of drone attacks has escalated significantly, with recent data indicating an average of 700 strike UAVs deployed monthly in 2024, 3,907 drones in February 2025 alone, and 870 attack drones in just the first week of March 2025. 

In terms of nightly attacks, a typical large-scale assault involves between 70-130 drones. 

The economic asymmetry is stark when examining actual cost figures: a Patriot interceptor missile (PAC-3) costs $3.8 million and a NASAMS interceptor (AIM-9X variant) costs slightly over $1 million, yet these sophisticated systems are being used to counter Shahed drones estimated to cost between $20,000-$50,000 each. This creates an unsustainable cost ratio of 28:1 to 85:1 in Russia’s favor. Projecting these figures quarterly, Russia’s drone campaign (based on the average of 700 drones per month from 2024 statistics) costs approximately $24.5 million monthly, while interception costs in case it used Western air defence missiles only could exceed $700 million monthly. Over a full year, this represents a potential financial burden of approximately $8.4 billion for air defence operations of a country engaged in war with Russia against drones alone, while Russia’s annual expenditure on Shahed drones at current deployment rates amounts to roughly $294 million – a devastating economic asymmetry that threatens to exhaust defensive resources of any European country at risk.

Moreover, the economic impact of mass drone and hybrid campaigns extends far beyond direct military costs, creating much more substantial financial damage to civilian infrastructure. The direct physical damage is estimated at about $170 billion as of late 2024​. This includes tens of thousands of destroyed buildings, roads, and facilities across the country. Critical lifelines have been ravaged: transport infrastructure losses are about $38.5 billion (including 26,000 km of roads and hundreds of bridges and rail facilities), and the energy sector has taken at least $14.6 billion in losses, with major power plants and high-voltage substations destroyed by missile strikes​. Industries, agriculture, health care, and education have also faced heavy damage, bringing the total financial burden of destruction to unprecedented levels. Notably, just in 2024 an additional $12.6 billion in new damage was recorded due to ongoing missile/drone attacks and fighting​ underscoring how each new wave of air raids adds billions to Ukraine’s bill for reconstruction. These economic impacts demonstrate that the true cost ratio of attack-to-defence becomes even more unfavorable when accounting for infrastructure damage: for every $1 million Russia spends on drone and missile attacks, Ukraine and its partners must spend approximately $114 million on air defence and reconstruction combined.

The scale of destruction in Ukraine underscores how catastrophic a similar war on EU soil would be. Ukraine’s $170  billion infrastructure damage is nearly equal to its pre-war annual GDP, and its wrecked assets will cost nearly half a trillion dollars to restore​. If a comparable percentage of infrastructure were obliterated in a large EU country (which generally has higher-value infrastructure), the financial toll would be staggering. For example, Poland’s economy is roughly three times larger than Ukraine’s; war damage on the Ukrainian scale could easily exceed $500  billion for Poland alone, given the higher cost of European infrastructure. No country’s budget could withstand such costs without massive outside help. This underscores why Ukraine’s allies consider its fight not just a regional issue but one with broader European security and economic implications – preventing such devastation from spreading is crucial, as the financial (and human) cost would be unthinkable for the EU.

Ukraine’s Air Defence Challenges and Adaptation

The response to this challenge transcends a simple migration from costly legacy air defence systems to more cost-effective alternatives. Ukraine has adopted a multi-layered approach that significantly reduces costs while maintaining effectiveness. Mobile fire groups equipped with machine guns with laser designation, electronic warfare and portable air defence systems have proven effective against low-flying drones at a fraction of the cost of missile interceptions, while stationary systems, physical protection and aircraft worked against ballistic and cruise missiles. 

Stationary Defences vs. Combined Attacks. At the war’s outset, much of Ukraine’s air defence network consisted of stationary, Soviet-era systems (like S-300 and Buk) designed decades ago. These fixed defences proved insufficient against Russia’s modern, combined air assaults, which come in complex waves mixing cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and kamikaze drones. Since late 2022 Russia deliberately conducted combined strikes to overwhelm air defence, sending dozens of missiles from different directions and altitudes simultaneously, accompanied by Iranian-made Shahed drones. This tactic exploited any gaps in coverage. Ukraine’s legacy systems struggled to cope: low-flying cruise missiles and drones slipped past jet-adopted radars, while high-speed ballistic missiles like Iskander or Kinzhal were extremely hard to intercept without advanced systems. 

Since the beginning of war, few cities like Kyiv were well shielded, but most suffered being bombarded as their stationary air defence batteries were outnumbered or outmaneuvered. Tying air defence units to specific regions or branches (e.g. army vs. air force) also hindered coordination. This exposed the vulnerability of relying on a few stationary systems – any downtime or blind spot could be fatal. It also suggested possible enemy reconnaissance spotting weak points. 

In summary, Ukraine’s old static air defence infrastructure was not designed to handle the sheer volume and diversity of threats now thrown at it. Patriot or SAMP/T batteries were scarce as Ukraine only started receiving these Western systems in 2023, and trying to use a limited number of high-end systems to cover everywhere was impossible. Analysts calculated that facing drone swarms of 100+ in a night, it was impossible to rely solely on expensive systems like Patriot, which were too few in number and too costly per shot to tackle every cheap UAV​. This forced Ukraine to rethink its air defence approach. 

Object-Based, Multi-Layered Defence. Over 2022–2023, Ukraine adapted by shifting to an air defence strategy with multi-layer protection. Instead of simply trying to cover broad regions, Ukraine began assigning units to shield specific critical sites – especially infrastructure like power plants, substations, and dams that Russia was targeting. Military experts note this so-called “object-centric air defence” as one of the most effective ways to guard the power grid​. In practice, this means stacking multiple layers of defence around key facilities: long-range stationary systems to engage high-flying or fast threats at a distance, medium- and short-range weapons to catch anything that leaks through, and man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS) for drones at low altitude. By late 2022, Ukraine had to prioritize – not every asset could be covered, but major power nodes were given dedicated protection. 

In the fall of 2022, as Russia’s barrage on the energy grid intensified, Ukraine’s government launched a crash program to harden and protect energy infrastructure with three layers of defence. This three-tier system included: passive defences – physical fortifications to blunt blast and shrapnel effects (like concrete walls, gabion barriers filled with sand/stone, and burying critical equipment); anti-drone/low-altitude defence – structures and systems to stop drones and glide bombs; anti-missile defence – measures against cruise and ballistic missiles. The passive defence level was the hardest: Ukraine, with partner help, developed engineering solutions to shield critical gear from direct missile hits. By the end of 2024, 22 critical substations in 14 regions were equipped with experimental missile-resistant constructions​.

In 2023 – 2024, Ukraine also embraced innovative electronic warfare solutions, such as the domestically produced Kvertus EW backpack systems that costs approximately $7,000 per unit and can effectively jam Russian drones within its operational range, and fighter aircraft into the air defence system. EW units jammed drone guidance, while MiG-29 (subsequently – also F-16) pilots have shot down some cruise missiles with air-to-air missiles when possible. All these layers – engineering fortification, EW jamming, ground-based interceptors, and occasional fighter intercept – formed a multilayered shield. 

The layered defence strategy – combining early warning radar networks, electronic warfare for first-line defence, mobile fire groups for low-altitude threats, and reserving expensive missile systems only for high-value targets that breach initial defences – has proven both operationally effective and economically sustainable against Russia’s saturation strategy. By diversifying defensive capabilities and integrating them into a unified system, Ukraine has demonstrated that the asymmetric challenge posed by mass drone and hybrid attacks can be countered without exhausting limited defence resources.

Ukraine’s experience has conclusively demonstrated that even a multilayered object-based system cannot adequately protect the country’s 603,500 km² territory against Russia’s combined attack strategy. The Ukrainian military estimates that Russia can simultaneously attack from up to 16 different vectors, using multiple aircraft types and launching platforms, which overwhelms fixed-position defences. This has forced Ukraine to make difficult strategic choices about which critical infrastructure to protect, leaving approximately 70% of high-value civilian targets with minimal or no dedicated air defence coverage as of early 2024. Currently, interception rates for attacks against protected objects reach 87-93%, compared to 40-60% for unprotected sites.

Territorial Multi-Layered Defence. This new paradigm, which is on the proof-of-concept stage in The Grouping of Forces and Means of Kyiv Defence, goes further to address the problem of vast vulnerable, completely unprotected areas abandoned to their fate by object-based air defense systems.

The newly developed system is a distributed, small-scale, and cost-efficient air defense solution designed to detect and neutralize drones, cruise missiles, and other airborne threats effectively across all regions on a continuous 24/7 basis, with minimal latency in data transmission. The system leverages a network of numerous low-cost firing assets strategically dispersed throughout a country’s territory. To ensure operational efficacy, seamless and rapid data exchange must be maintained between radar sensors, command centers, and mobile fire units.

Effective resource allocation across distinct altitude tiers is critical: 

• Up to 500 meters (primarily for occasional drone threats);
• 500–1,500 meters (medium altitudes, addressing drones and missiles);
• Above 1,500 meters (manned aircraft and cruise missiles);
• Above 5,000 meters (strategic aviation).The system employs either kinetic or non-kinetic countermeasures, selected based on altitude, threat type, and situational variables. Primary interception methods rely on kinetic solutions, including machine guns, cannons, and short-range MANPADS, with a strong emphasis on maximizing fire control automation. MANPADS play a pivotal role in countering cruise missiles at low to medium altitudes, necessitating a substantial increase in their deployment – an estimated shortfall for Ukraine is 300–400 additional launchers.Cost-effective laser-guided missiles, such as the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) “Hydra” or comparable systems (ideally priced at approximately $10,000 per unit), provide significant advantages. These include the use of modern, widely available sensors, reduced costs compared to conventional air defense systems, and the ability to intercept cruise missiles with precise guidance. Additionally, interceptor drones (e.g., FPV drones paired with radar systems) offer an effective countermeasure against reconnaissance drones and, perspectively, kamikaze UAVs. However, their success depends on a high degree of automation – minimizing human intervention and ensuring high-quality radar data – as well as the standardization of data exchange protocols across diverse radar platforms.However, until these innovative adaptations are on the go, Ukraine cannot do without European-led Integrated Air Protection Zone (IAPZ), as it remains significantly outmatched in terms of overall air defence capacity when facing the scale and persistence of Russian aerial attacks. Statistical analysis from Ukraine’s Air Force suggests that integrating just 8-12 combat aircraft in coordinated CAP rotations could potentially intercept 65-75% of cruise missiles currently penetrating western and central Ukrainian regions, thereby protecting critical infrastructure. Military experts recommend deploying approximately 40 to 120 European fighter jets to protect Ukraine’s airspace effectively. Without that, Ukraine will continue to face a 10–25% leak-through of threats, with all the attendant human and economic costs those strikes carry.

Acquisition and Deployment Recommendations

The new framework for comprehensive territorial air defence support needs to address a differentiated range of aerial target types – – from decoy and strike drones to hypersonic missiles – and ensure tailored responses for each case by blending detection and strike capabilities within a more intelligent and adaptive multi-tiered air defence architecture. 

The key aspects of this approach should incorporate:

Implementation of Distributed defence Architecture. EU member states should transition from centralized, object-based air defence to a distributed, territorial system. This requires the deployment of numerous small, mobile air defence units equipped with cost-effective kinetic interceptors and integrated sensor networks,

• capable of providing flexible and rapid response to diverse aerial threats within the area of ​​responsibility; 
• Adjusted C2 Framework. Implementation of AI – driven command and control system can minimize human intervention while maximizing response efficiency. This includes automated target recognition, threat classification, and engagement prioritization systems. It is critical to implement a standardized digital command protocol that enables data sharing and response coordination across all air defence assets;
• Technological Integration. Modern air defence requires the seamless integration of multiple systems, including radar networks, stationary anti-aircraft complexes, mobile fire groups, and EW capabilities. The critical component is establishing rapid and accurate data flow between detection systems, command centers, and response units. Conventional high-cost radar systems, originally designed for high-altitude target acquisition, are to be supplemented with low-cost passive radar systems effective against small aerial objects operating in the sub-1000-meter envelope;
• Cost-Effective Innovation. Development of affordable interceptor drones and missiles, equipped with modern digital seekers and laser guidance systems, is critical to provide a more sustainable economic model for countering mass drone and combined attacks. These systems must be complemented by distributed networks of inexpensive radars optimized for low-altitude detection. Establishing a program for developing and manufacturing specialized counter-drone systems should consider specific capabilities against both reconnaissance and strike drones, as they need specific critical components such as specialized microprocessors, power systems, and navigation technologies;

EW component. Contemporary cognitive electronic warfare systems must be integrated as a complementary layer of defence, particularly for soft-kill capabilities against electronic systems of air targets. The development of directed-energy weapons, including laser and microwave systems, offers promising capabilities for future integration.

Case Study: Sky Fortress

“Sky Fortress” is Ukrainian acoustic detection network that has gained significant recognition for its effectiveness in detecting aerial threats. According to Riki Ellison, founder of the Missile defence Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), the system has evolved to become highly sophisticated and effective, successfully detecting most Russian attack drones targeting Ukraine. The system’s capabilities were recently demonstrated at a military training ground in Europe, where representatives from 11 NATO countries witnessed its performance in detecting and tracking simulated missiles and drones. While detailed technical specifications of Sky Fortress are not publicly available, its proven effectiveness has contributed to growing interest from NATO countries in acoustic detection technology for air defence systems.