Putin claims that Ukraine has no ‘antidote’ to Russia’s new jet-powered drones. Kyiv has already shown it can shoot them down, but doing it at scale could cost billions.

Vladimir Putin told reporters at a Cultural Forum that Ukraine sought an “air ceasefire” out of weakness, claiming Kyiv has no “antidote” to Russia's new jet-powered “Geran-3” drones, which are essentially small cruise missiles built by bolting a Chinese turbojet engine onto the older piston-driven “Geran-2.” The new drones roughly double the old model's speed but carry less fuel and a smaller warhead, and cost several times more to build, undercutting the original drones' main selling point of being cheap and numerous.

Ukraine has in fact been intercepting the older drones effectively using a network of radar, acoustic and infrared sensors paired with cheap electric interceptor drones costing under $10,000 apiece, making saturation strikes on Kyiv and Odesa increasingly uneconomical for Russia. The faster jet-powered drones are harder to catch, but Ukraine retains the technical know-how to build countermeasures; the open question is whether it can afford to scale them fast enough.

Much of the operational detail comes from Ukrainian military intelligence and security services, sources with an obvious interest in advertising their own successes, though photos, videos and captured hardware provide some independent corroboration.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.