LOCUST is AeroVironment's high-energy laser counter-drone weapon family, developed by BlueHalo and deployed by the US Army in palletized and vehicle-mounted configurations.
The Space-Based Interceptor program develops orbital kinetic interceptors for Golden Dome, with a planned constellation intended to engage missiles during boost, midcourse and glide phases.
The Glide Phase Interceptor is a US-Japan missile-development program intended to give Aegis ships and Aegis Ashore a hit-to-kill defense against hypersonic glide vehicles during atmospheric glide.
LY-1, also called Liaoyuan-1, is a Chinese laser directed-energy weapon intended for close-range naval air defense. Public reporting documents its unveiling and apparent shipboard evaluation, while interception performance and operational service remain unestablished.
Freya is a Ukrainian-led European ballistic-missile defence project combining Fire Point's FP-7.x interceptor with European sensors and command systems. It remains in development, without a demonstrated ballistic interception.
Lima is a Ukrainian ground-based electronic-warfare system designed to disrupt the satellite navigation of Russian drones, guided bombs and missiles.
Sky Fortress is a Ukrainian passive acoustic surveillance network that detects low-flying drones and missiles and supplies tracks to air-defense units.
The European Commission disbursed €1.24 billion for Ukrainian-made weapons the same morning Moscow claimed it struck Fire Point's missile and drone facilities.
An unmarked shoulder-fired missile in a Rostov air-defense team resembles China's QW series. Its origin is unconfirmed, but Ukraine's drone campaign explains why Russia wants it.
Berlin is paying Quantum Systems to scale interceptor production inside Ukraine before any interceptor drone has shown it can reliably kill Russia's jet-powered Gerans.
Russia's cheap jet-powered cruise missile hit a Kharkiv district twice in one evening, and Ukrainian intelligence estimates Russian plants can build up to 80 of them a month.
Lockheed Martin led Fortem's $50 million Series B to expand DroneHunter production in Utah and tie Fortem's radars and interceptors into its Sanctum counter-drone software. The Army's new counter-drone IDIQ does not name Fortem.
Ukraine's first announced FP-7 combat launch gives Kyiv a domestic ballistic strike weapon. Fire Point's faster FP-7.x interceptor faces a harder test, and both depend on production Ukraine has not yet shown.
The Army's $4.15 billion Domestic Shield counter-drone vehicle fits the small drone over a U.S. base. Only $50 million is funded, and its one Ukraine-tested interceptor flies at about half the speed of Russia's Geran-4.
Aeon says it will license-build Destinus' Hornet Block 2 interceptor in Texas from 2027, and the pair's joint proposal is a Topic 1 finalist in the Army's xTech|Apex Intercept competition.
The Pentagon's up-to-$20.7 billion AMRAAM contract refills U.S. and allied magazines through 2033. Ukraine, where F-16s and NASAMS fire the missile at Russian cruise missiles and jet drones, is not a named buyer.
Origin Robotics and Anduril will test the BLAZE drone interceptor on Anduril's Lattice software in Latvia. The work is self-funded, and no date is set. Latvia already buys BLAZE under a multi-year framework.
The likely PAC-2 route avoids PAC-3's seeker constraint, but offers weaker ballistic defense from a European production base Germany hosts and Poland wants.
The Finnish counter-drone maker is asking investors to price its market as durable European defense spending, not a war trade, at up to €1.3 billion.
Russia fired Zircons, ballistic missiles and 282 drones at Ukraine overnight. Kyiv stopped 60% of the ballistic missiles, and Zelensky says some nights this year the rate was zero.
South Korea's fielded medium-layer missile-defence system, exported to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iraq and used by the UAE against Iranian attacks.
South Korea's domestically developed upper-layer air and ballistic-missile defence system, designed to operate above Cheongung-II and Patriot in the country's layered shield.
The $2.68 billion proposal lists S-300 Clone and GAM-67 missiles, but the State Department gives no quantities or delivery schedule.
Russia hit Kyiv with jet-powered drones hours after Zelensky met Trump, as the Patriot interceptors he asked for remain unpromised and he warns a larger strike is coming.
The first Geran-5 kills show that Ukrainian interceptors can catch Russia's fastest attack drones. The next six months turn on factories, financing and a Patriot stopgap.
Russia and Ukraine struck energy and industrial targets hours before Zelensky meets Trump, putting air defense and Kyiv's refinery campaign at the center of the talks.
The 55Zh6U Nebo-U is a Russian long-range VHF surveillance radar designed to detect and track aircraft, missiles and low-observable targets, then pass early-warning tracks to integrated air-defense systems.
Russia's Geran-5 has reached Kyiv and drawn Iranian interest. Its marquee capabilities are unproven, its range is contested and its output depends on one Chinese turbojet.
China's short-range naval point-defense missile system, fielded across warships from Type 056 corvettes to Type 055 destroyers and aircraft carriers as the fleet's final missile layer against incoming threats.
China's HQ-11 is a mobile terminal air-defence system combining vertical-launch missiles, a Type 1130-derived close-in gun and networked command elements to protect units and key sites.
The HQ-12, developed from the export-oriented KS-1 family, is a Chinese road-mobile medium-range surface-to-air missile system built around phased-array fire control and exported across Asia.
The HQ-7 is a Chinese short-range surface-to-air missile system derived from the French Crotale, with the improved FM-90 serving as its principal export version.
A repurposed air-defense training missile made up more than half of Russia's confirmed ballistic strikes on Ukraine this summer, drawing on scarce Patriot interceptors while Moscow holds its Iskanders for winter.
Zoubin is an Iranian short-range, low-altitude air-defence system combining a 360-degree radar with vertically launched missiles to counter drones, cruise missiles and low-flying aircraft.
Iran's Qaem family comprises TOW-derived short-range surface-to-air missiles, UAV-carried glide bombs and the longer-range Qaem-118 counter-air interceptor.
NATO's first drone shootdown over Lithuania came from Baltic Air Policing fighters, five months after Lithuania bought 48 interceptors priced near $15,000 a shot for exactly this job.
Mistral is a French infrared-guided very-short-range air-defense missile family used from tripod, vehicle, naval and helicopter launchers against aircraft, helicopters, drones and cruise missiles.
A compact US-German ship-defense missile that combines passive radio-frequency and infrared homing to intercept anti-ship missiles and other close-range threats.
A Soviet low-to-medium-altitude surface-to-air missile system whose modernized descendants remain in service, including Polish Newa SC and Ukrainian Pechora-2D batteries.
The 2K12 Kub, known to NATO as the SA-6 Gainful, is a Soviet tracked surface-to-air missile system built to accompany ground forces and engage aircraft at low and medium altitudes.
A Soviet-designed tracked short-range air-defense system combining twin 30 mm cannons, radio-command missiles and onboard radars to protect mobile ground forces from low-flying aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones.
Majid is an Iranian short-range air-defense system combining electro-optical tracking with passive imaging-infrared missiles for low-altitude defense against drones, cruise missiles, helicopters and aircraft.
Iran's road-mobile medium-to-long-range surface-to-air missile system, combining a phased-array engagement radar with Sayyad-family interceptors for defense against aircraft and uncrewed aerial vehicles.
Israel's operational upper-tier interceptor for destroying tactical and medium-range ballistic missiles in the atmosphere, positioned between the exo-atmospheric Arrow 3 and David's Sling.
Starstreak is a British very-short-range air-defense missile that accelerates beyond Mach 3 and releases three laser beam-riding darts against aircraft, helicopters and drones.
The 9K33 Osa, known to NATO as the SA-8 Gecko, is a Soviet mobile short-range surface-to-air missile system that combines radar, fire control and ready missiles on one amphibious vehicle.
Russia's S-350 Vityaz is a road-mobile, medium-range surface-to-air missile system built around a deep magazine of active-radar 9M96 interceptors and intended to replace the S-300PS.
Russia has pushed Ukraine past cheap FPV interceptors and through its air-to-air missile reserves. The next air-defense contest turns on who can manufacture an affordable round by the thousand.
Boeing brings the seeker and the airframe. Anduril brings the solid rocket motor, from a Mississippi plant it built because US motor supply had narrowed to two vendors.
The Sept. 8 barrage that ended the envoy pause isolated the one air-defense gap Kyiv now wants American interceptors and European money to close.
L3Harris licensed Shield AI's Tracker counter-drone software onto VAMPIRE, putting the startup's detection stack on a launcher the US Army has already ordered up to $106 million of.
The conversion would shift Volkswagen's smallest German plant from cabriolets to launchers, military vehicles and other air-defense hardware.
Kyiv wants several billion euros of the EU's 90 billion euro support loan spent on US-built PAC-3 interceptors, a purchase the loan's own origin rule was written to discourage.
Thales RapidRanger is a lightweight, vehicle-mounted short-range air-defense system combining autonomous surveillance with LMM/Martlet or Starstreak missiles.
Raid Hunter is Northrop Grumman's developmental 50 mm gun-based air-defense system, combining precision-guided ammunition, a Bushmaster Chain Gun and networked fire control against massed drones and cruise missiles.
Phalanx CIWS is a self-contained, radar-guided 20 mm naval gun system designed to provide warships with a final defensive layer against missiles, aircraft, drones and surface threats.
Khyzhak is a Ukrainian AI-assisted, stabilized remote weapon station that uses a 7.62 mm PKT machine gun to engage FPV, fiber-optic and Shahed-type drones from ground, maritime and aviation platforms.
A US programme to develop tactical, containerised 500 kW laser weapons for defeating cruise missiles and uncrewed aerial systems.
EU HYDEF is a European technology-maturation programme developing an endo-atmospheric interceptor against hypersonic threats, led by Spain's SMS Defensa and managed by OCCAR.
China's road-mobile exo-atmospheric ballistic-missile interceptor, presented as a follow-on to the HQ-19 but still defined more by its September 2025 parade appearance than by verified performance data.
China's road-mobile exo-atmospheric interceptor, designed to defeat medium-range ballistic missiles through direct impact and provide an upper tier for the country's layered missile defenses.
The RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile is a medium-range naval air-defence weapon whose four-round Mk 41 cell packing gives Western warships substantial self-defence magazine depth.
Epirus Leonidas is a short-range, solid-state high-power microwave weapon designed to disable groups and swarms of uncrewed aircraft through one-to-many electronic attack.
Taiwan's indigenous high-altitude anti-ballistic missile system, designed to provide the upper interception tier of the planned T-Dome air and missile defense network.
CAMM is a British modular surface-to-air missile family fielded at sea as Sea Ceptor and on land through Sky Sabre, combining active guidance with a soft vertical launch system.
The Army's first production contract for a laser weapon puts a 30-kilowatt drone killer on tactical vehicles while the Iran war drains Patriot and THAAD stocks.
A shoulder-fired infrared missile that Russia now launches from helicopters to hunt Ukrainian drones — and bolts to Shahed airframes so the drone can shoot back at the aircraft sent to intercept it.
A 1976 Soviet missile system built to shoot down low-flying jets, now hunting Lancets and Hornets. Its infrared seeker was never designed to find something the size of a quadcopter — which is why Ukraine bolted an electro-optical sight to nine of them.
A 1965 Soviet anti-aircraft gun built to shoot down jets, now one of the cheapest ways Ukraine kills Shahed drones. Sixteen modernised Shilkas funded by a charity recorded their first Shahed shootdowns in December 2025.
Britain took ASRAAM missiles awaiting disposal, bolted them to launch rails cut from retired Tornado, Hawk and Jaguar jets, and welded the result to a Supacat truck. The improvisation has claimed over 400 aerial targets in Ukraine.
A British air-defence system inside a shipping container that fires Ukraine's own Soviet-era R-73 air-to-air missiles from salvaged fighter launch rails — built because Ukraine had missiles it could not launch and targets it could not reach.
More than 200 drones and decoys pressed Ukraine's air defenses as ballistic missiles reached a transit node on Kyiv's left bank, six years into a war Russia is escalating with the country's Patriot stocks thin.
Greece and Sweden committed €7.3 billion to new air defense on Monday, one day before EU ministers meet to ask Athens for the Patriot interceptors it already owns.
Greece is buying Israel's complete layered air-defense architecture, marking the first full-array export in Israel's history.
Russia first outran Ukraine's cheap drone shield. Now it is blinding the operators, pushing the defense toward onboard guidance and digital links that erode the interceptor's defining cost advantage.
Counter-drone demand is producing revenue, but DroneShield's order book thins sharply after this year while its expanded cost base weighs on profit.
The delay pushes back Germany's mobile counter-drone defense while other European buyers commit to the same Rheinmetall system.
Vectus packages layered defenses and autonomy software used in Ukraine into a managed service for governments and critical infrastructure operators.
The Aug. 20 barrage on Kyiv killed at least 16 and exposed the gap between Russia's ballistic missile salvos and the Patriot interceptor production needed to stop them.
Russia flew 76 jet-powered Gerans at Ukraine in daylight on Aug. 18. Turbojet drones now reach two-thirds of some waves and roll off Alabuga at about 3,000 a month, faster than the $2,000 interceptors that beat the Shahed. Kyiv's jet-powered answer is still in combat testing.
Rafael's laser remains short of operational service while Elbit carries a record $32 billion backlog and Greece advances a $4 billion missile-defense package.
North Korea is supplying the one class of weapon Ukraine can no longer intercept, and Pyongyang collects performance feedback from every Russian launch.
Investors bet $3.4 billion on Monday that cheap interceptor missiles win the counter-drone war. The same week, the Pentagon capped what it will pay for them and funded two rival ways of killing drones.
Ukraine is containing Russia's cheap drones but failing against ballistic missiles, so Kyiv is attacking the ground network that generates strike mass while it races to build a domestic interceptor.
Fire Point has closed agreements with 13 European partners, but national licensing rules now threaten a mid-2027 interceptor that Ukraine needs before Patriot supplies recover.
The Aug. 5 barrage destroyed Ukraine's largest automated distribution center and a Nova Poshta sorting hub, as both sides now strike the other's commercial logistics on a dual-use rationale.
Trump promised Kyiv a licence to build Patriot missiles, then took it back. The reason sits in a depleted US arsenal and a single Alabama factory, not in the president's mood.
Ukraine's $2,000 interceptor drones stop nine in ten Shaheds. Its ballistic defense depends on a Lockheed line building 52 interceptors a month, and Trump has withdrawn the licence that was Kyiv's way around it.
Saab's current-generation RBS 70 very-short-range air-defense system, combining laser-beam-riding missiles with an automatic tracker and thermal sight for man-portable or vehicle-integrated operation.
Ukraine's mobile fire units are engaging cruise missiles for lack of Patriot interceptors. Hours later, the US Army locked in a seven-year PAC-3 buy worth up to $58.6 billion.
Tehran's answer to losing its fixed SAM sites is a $60 million buy of man-portable launchers, routed through a Hong Kong intermediary and, reportedly, Pakistan.
The Pentagon signed seven-year framework deals with L3Harris to nearly triple PAC-3 MSE and quadruple THAAD propulsion output, three days after interceptor-stockpile warnings paused the Iran campaign.
Two Russian ballistic missiles hit a defense-industry expo near Kyiv, killing at least 10, a day after Zelensky and Raytheon agreed to co-produce Patriot interceptors. The strike is the risk statement for Ukraine's air-defense industrial plan.
Several experimental batteries of AI robotic gun turrets are already guarding Ukrainian energy sites, the deputy commander-in-chief says, at $35,000 to $160,000 a turret against interceptors that cost far more.
Allen Control Systems' autonomous turret joins L-MADIS under a prototype agreement worth about $6.2 million, adding bullets to a counter-drone platform that has run on jamming.
Ten nations adopted Fire Point's FREYJA as Europe's anti-ballistic program, France licensed Aster and SCALP production inside Ukraine, and five companies signed on to build the layer above it. The air-defense pipeline just reversed direction.
Lockheed Martin's GRIZZLY is a containerized missile launcher, tested in June 2026 firing a JAGM to intercept a Group 3 attack drone at Yuma, that fuses Lockheed's Sanctum battle-management software and Fortem R-40 radars into one counter-drone kill chain.
CACI's SkyValor is a long-range, autonomous counter-drone system that defeats UAS without gunfire, jamming their links and firing nets to capture them intact. The Pentagon validated it for use across the entire US Joint Force in June 2026 after a southern-border test.
Iron Wasp is a vehicle-mounted hard-kill counter-drone interceptor from Rafael and SpearUAV: a capsule-launched interceptor drone, derived from SpearUAV's Viper I, that lets armored vehicles physically destroy FPV drones and loitering munitions while on the move.
Iran answered a second night of US strikes by firing on bases in four countries, aiming, by its own account, at a Patriot battery in Kuwait and an early-warning radar in Qatar.