Ukraine is answering Russia's expanding drone campaign on three levels at once: striking the launch sites before the drones take off, automating the guns that defend its cities, and building physical traps for the fibre-optic drones that jamming cannot stop. The Ukrainian General Staff said on Monday that strikes had hit Russian drone storage and launch sites and damaged a Buk-M3 air-defence system in the Zaporizhzhia area — a move Kyiv describes as an effort to disrupt Moscow's ability to sustain mass drone attacks.
The push comes as the air war intensifies on both sides. Ukraine's Air Force said Russia launched 137 drones overnight into Tuesday, while in the city of Zaporizhzhia an overnight strike on a residential building injured at least five people, with 11 more rescued from the apartment block, according to the State Emergency Service.
Hitting the launchers, not just the drones
Kyiv's logic is economic as much as military. Shooting down every incoming drone with missiles is ruinously expensive, so Ukraine is trying to break the chain earlier — at the storage sites and launch positions where Russian drones are prepared. The General Staff's Monday update said Ukrainian strikes hit drone storage and launch facilities and damaged a Buk-M3, one of Russia's modern medium-range air-defence systems, in the Zaporizhzhia area.
Removing or damaging that kind of air-defence cover matters twice over: it weakens the shield protecting Russian launch crews, and it makes follow-up strikes on the same infrastructure easier. Ukraine has used the same approach against Russian oil and logistics targets all autumn, arguing that the cheapest drone to defeat is the one that never leaves the ground.
Robots on the roofline
Around Kyiv, Ukraine has begun fielding AI-guided automated gun towers, which Ukrainian officials say have already shot down high-speed Russian jet drones, including Geran-5 models. Russia's shift toward faster, jet-powered attack drones has outpaced some of Ukraine's legacy defences, which were built around slower propeller-driven Shahed-type aircraft. Automated towers that detect, track and fire without a human gunner in the loop are Kyiv's answer to targets that cross the sky too quickly for manual engagement.
At the front, a different problem needs a different tool. Russian FPV drones guided by fibre-optic cable cannot be jammed, because there is no radio link to break. Ukraine is therefore deploying devices such as the Chaharnyk cable-cutting fence, which listens for an approaching drone acoustically, grabs its fibre tether and cuts it, sending the drone out of control. Ukrainian units are also adding extra shielding and electronic countermeasures to armoured vehicles as Russia sharply increases its use of fast jet-powered and tethered FPV drones.
Industry joins the fight
The third layer is industrial. Western support is now aimed at mass production rather than boutique systems: German pledges and partnerships are intended to produce tens of thousands of interceptor drones and low-cost small rockets, which Kyiv plans to field this winter to build a layered, mass-produced air defence.
That matters because the winter campaign is already taking shape. Russia has signalled it will intensify strikes on Kyiv and other cities, and Ukrainian officials warn of a growing missile stockpile. If Ukraine can answer cheap Russian drones with cheap interceptors, automated guns and cut fibre cables — while striking the launch sites behind them — it changes the arithmetic that Moscow's drone campaign depends on. The side that runs out of affordable answers first loses the sky, and Kyiv is determined it will not be Ukraine.
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