With iPads, lasers and Soviet machine guns: how the Ukrainians are taking down Russian drones

Waiting makes up a significant part of a soldier's life, even in war. In a vast field somewhere in northeastern Ukraine, the men of an anti-aircraft unit stand next to their vehicles at sunset, passing the time with cigarettes and crude remarks. Empty cartridge cases lie on the ground. Clearly, this isn't the first time this location has been used.

"Maybe there'll be an operation tonight, maybe not," says the commander, Logist. "But probably." After all, they're standing on an important flight path for Russian drones. As is often the case during visits to the Ukrainian front, the soldiers only give their combat names. "Logist" means logistician. He and his men belong to the 115th Mechanized Brigade, a unit of the Ukrainian army.

Russia has intensified its air attacks in recent weeks. Every night, dozens or even hundreds of kamikaze drones are heading for targets in Ukraine. Added to this are rockets and cruise missiles, whose impacts cause even greater damage. The effects are devastating.

On June 24, a rocket attack in Dnipro killed at least 19 people and injured more than 300, according to authorities. The previous week, an attack on Kyiv left 30 people dead and 172 injured. Before that, Kharkiv was targeted by massive aerial bombardment. And on Sunday night, Russia carried out the largest airstrike of the war so far, launching 477 drones and 60 missiles across the country.

These are just the major attacks that make Western headlines. There are deaths and injuries practically every night, and damage to infrastructure as well. The importance of a powerful air defense system for Ukraine cannot be overstated.

The debate mostly revolves around modern systems such as the American Patriot missiles. Ukraine possesses eight such squadrons, but says it needs at least ten more to effectively protect its major cities against missile attacks. Moreover, the ammunition for these missiles is gradually running out. The meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky at the recent NATO summit in The Hague reportedly also addressed the urgently needed supplies.

Patriot systems are the luxury class of air defense. However, simpler and, above all, cheaper solutions are needed to counter mass-produced drones – and thus Ukrainian improvisational talent. The backbone of the fight against kamikaze drones is currently mobile units consisting of off-road vehicles with mounted machine guns.

For the men of the 115th Brigade, this includes a 14.5-millimeter cannon mounted on a military truck and a smaller rifle mounted on a pickup truck. The company commander, Logist, says he commands half a dozen such units. This allows them to control the skies over a fairly wide swath of the front.

It's not quite dark yet, and the situation remains calm. The soldiers inspect their equipment. Here and there, a little oil is added to the gun mechanisms and the ammunition is prepared. There are frequent smoke breaks in between.

Zigan ("Gypsy"), the squad's joker and one of the riflemen, says with a laugh that they fight "the Somali way, plus a bit of high-tech." Indeed, at first glance, the pickup truck could easily be deployed in rebel-held territory in Africa. The rifles date back to the Soviet era. The technology of the machine gun even dates back to the 1940s. The aiming is done manually, via cranks.

These weapons from the analog era are also connected to a laser sight and a computer—more precisely, a tablet that transmits airspace surveillance data. Both aid the shooter in target acquisition.

Shortly before midnight, the report actually arrives: a swarm of drones is approaching from the east. The soldiers take up their posts with routine activity. There's barely any conversation.

Shots from another unit can be heard in the distance. Then a strange, hard-to-detect noise follows. Is that a drone? Nothing can be seen—not even the beams of light cast by the laser in the sky change that. Nevertheless, the gunner seems to have something in his sights and fires a first volley into the black night, then a second. The drone echoes for a long time.

For about an hour, this spectacle repeats itself over and over again. Three times, a glowing dot falls to the ground in the distance: Hit! Logist, the commander, monitors the events on his tablet and coordinates the operation. On a digital map, he sees his units and the ranges of their respective guns, as well as the flight paths of all Russian and Ukrainian drones in the air.

"Kamikaze drones can't relay our location. But if a surveillance drone comes near, we have to leave immediately." That won't be necessary this evening. The unit will relocate later, but not for security reasons, but for a deployment to another sector of the front.

Before that, the commander takes stock of the financial situation. "Three launches, that's $120,000 – if there weren't any dummies." The production cost of a Shahed drone, based on Iranian technology, is estimated at $40,000. However, Russia also uses cheap imitations to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. "We only used a few hundred dollars in ammunition. A very good ratio." A single Patriot missile, on the other hand, costs several million.

Such cost-benefit analyses are an important element of military planning in a war of attrition. The unit can be satisfied. "We rarely have three kills in a single mission," says one of the soldiers. Last month, there were only fifteen in total.

Despite the successful night, Zigan believes that the "Somali technology," as he calls it, will soon be obsolete. Russia is working on developing faster aircraft. Furthermore, the drones are increasingly flying at high altitudes over the front line, only beginning to descend shortly before reaching their target. This makes them almost impossible for artillery like those of the 115th Brigade to detect.

"The future belongs to interceptor drones that destroy other drones in the air," says Zigan. Initial models are already in use. The organization Come Back Alive, which, among other things, raises funds to equip the armed forces, equipped the first brigades with such interceptor drones in March through its "Dronopad" ("Drone Crash") project.

But even the most modern technology doesn't guarantee a 100 percent interception rate. Russia can currently produce 90 Shahed drones per day. This means that, in the long term, it can deploy 2,700 of this model alone per month against targets in Ukraine. Some of them will always overcome air defenses. The destructive consequences of this are evident in Ukrainian cities every morning.