Ukraine is looking into cheaper ways to destroy Russian suicide drones that continue to obliterate and terrorise the country, as the Ukrainian deputy prime minister hails the war as an “unprecedented war of drones”.

According to a Reuters report, hundreds of engineers and military officials met in Kyiv last month to discuss new ways to retaliate against Russia’s deadly drones. 

Official data shows that Ukraine was attacked with over 300 Russian drones in May 2023.

The drones in question, known as “Shahed”, are manufactured in Iran and fly low to intercept air defences. 

The Russian-operated drones fly in swarms and move at a rapid speed, making it hard for anti-drone systems to destroy them. 

While the UK and US have supplied state-of-the-art air defence systems to Ukraine, the government says that they are too costly to continually run against barrages of cheap drones.

Using $1m missiles against a swarm of $50,000 drones is not cost-effective, officials said. 

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, said: “That’s not profitable, so we need to constantly cut the cost of the tools we use to destroy Shaheds.”

Organisers of the Kyiv meeting last month distributed $3m to three teams of experts who have come up with innovative technology to fight back against Russia’s Shaheds, Reuters reported.

One of the teams, viewed by the publication, presented a “quadrocopter” that they said could fly faster and longer than other drones. 

“It’ll be a drone that will… take off vertically to intercept or catch up with drones, shoot them down or jam them,” Reuters reported one of the team members as saying.

Ukraine is currently producing thousands of combat drones, backed by state funding, as the war with Russia continues, Reuters reported. 

“The war today is technological, with changes in technology and on the battlefield happening every day,” Fedorov said.