A Ukrainian defense manufacturer said Monday that its interceptor took down a Russian drone armed with an air-to-air missile, an unusual configuration signaling a new battlefield tactic.
Wild Hornets, a defense-tech firm making drones for the Ukrainian military, said that the Darknode battalion of Kyiv’s 412th Nemesis Brigade used its “Sting” interceptor drone to shoot down a Russian Shahed carrying a Soviet-era air-to-air missile.
Alex Roslin, the foreign support coordinator for Wild Hornets, told Business Insider that the recent engagement marks the first time a Sting interceptor has taken down a Shahed-type drone carrying an air-to-air missile.
Russia’s Shahed-style strike drones are typically armed with explosive warheads alone and are designed to dive toward a target before detonating on impact; these one-way attack drones haven’t been widely spotted carrying any external munitions.
Wild Hornets said in a statement that Russia appears to be using the air-to-air missiles to counter Ukrainian helicopters, one of the tools that Kyiv has relied on to intercept Shahed-type drones.
Neither Russia’s defense ministry nor its US embassy responded to a request for comment.
Video footage of the engagement, captured from the perspective of the Sting interceptor drone, appears to show a propeller-driven Geran-2 — the Russian variant of the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 — carrying the missile.
Wild Hornets identified the equipped weapon as the R-60, a short-range guided missile with a 10-kilometer (6-mile) range developed by the Soviet Union for fighter jets. The missile, which entered service in the early 1970s, has extensive combat experience and has been deployed in various Middle East conflicts.
Sergey Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian military expert, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the incident marks the first time an R-60 missile has been detected on a Shahed, adding that the combination “is designed to destroy helicopters and tactical aviation aircraft that hunt Shaheds.”
Beskrestnov shared photos purporting to show the wreckage of a downed Shahed and the missile. Business Insider could not independently verify the authenticity of the imagery.
Ukraine has increasingly relied on aircraft, including fighter jets and helicopters, to shoot down Russian drones. Adding missiles to the drones may be Moscow’s attempt to suppress these air defenses. The add-ons could reduce effectiveness, though, by putting limits on overall payload capacity.
It is not the first time in the war that drones have been armed with missiles. Ukrainian naval drones equipped with surface-to-air missiles have, for instance, shot down Russian aircraft over the Black Sea. The adaptation was made in response to increased Russian combat air patrols.
But the missile-armed Shahed marks a new development for Russia as it seeks to gain an advantage over Ukraine in what officials describe as a cat-and-mouse game of defense technology between the two sides.
Lt. Col. Yurii Myronenko, Ukraine’s deputy minister of defense for innovation, told Business Insider last month that Russia has already been trying to hit Ukrainian aircraft and helicopters midair with Shaheds.
Myronenko, a former drone unit commander, said Russia is testing new deep-strike weapons, including modified Shaheds. He did not mention air-to-air missiles, though.
Facing a growing Russian drone threat, Ukraine in recent months has turned to interceptor drones like Wild Hornets’ Sting for cheap air defense solutions.
The Sting costs roughly $2,500. Wild Hornets said in November that Ukrainian forces can use the interceptor drones to take down more than 100 Shaheds — estimated to cost between $20,000 and $70,000 — in a single night.
On Sunday, the company said Sting interceptors had taken down new Geran-3 drones — Russia’s jet-powered Shahed variant — for the first time during an attack the previous night.
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