By the Air Force's count Ukraine stopped a smaller share of the jets than of the other drones, and the Energy Ministry says the strikes left more than 500,000 people without electricity.
Jet-powered Gerans have outrun Ukraine's cheap interceptor drones, leaving fighter jets with half or more of the kills. Brave1's $20,000 missiles and seven fielded interceptors are the bid to bring the price back down.
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.
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.
Fire Point can now damage Moscow's oil economy, but Russia brings more weapons, industrial capacity and societal slack to a winter campaign that is already spilling into NATO airspace.
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'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.
Ukraine's Bars strike drone is now more than 74% domestically made, and the one part it still buys abroad is the turbojet. A Ukrainian engine has passed final tests. The engine, not the airframe, is what caps output on both sides of the drone war.
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.
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.
GPS-free navigation and autonomous terminal guidance move the intercept onto the aircraft as Russian jamming degrades external links.
The reusable drone cuts the cost of catching slow, low targets, but its 160 km/h speed leaves jet-powered Shaheds to faster interceptors.
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'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.
Ukrainian interceptor drones now down about half of Russia's Shaheds, so Moscow is scaling a faster jet-powered Geran-4 built to outrun them.