Russia’s Shaheds cost $10,000 each. Ukraine just unveiled drone that kills them for $2,000

Ukraine has unveiled a $2,000 interceptor drone capable of hunting Russian unmanned aerial vehicles on its own. The ZIRKA drone integrates automatic target detection, tracking, and terminal guidance, defense outlet Militarnyi reports.

The claim of a $2,000 fully-automated interceptor places ZIRKA at the price floor of the current Ukrainian interceptor market.

Auto-detection, tracking, terminal guidance at 340 km/h

ZIRKA integrates three automation layers: automatic target detection, tracking, and terminal guidance onto the target. That combination — detection through terminal-phase homing at the claimed price — is what NOCTIS and Vyriy Industries cite as the basis for the “lowest cost in class” claim among similar systems with equivalent automation.

The drone’s 340 km/h speed places it in the same performance class as Germany-funded STRILA (355 km/h.

That speed is sufficient against standard Iranian-designed Shahed-136 attack drones. But it is below the burst speed of Russia’s newer jet-propelled Shahed variants, which cruise at 300–350 km/h and can burst to 500–600 km/h.

NOCTIS as developer, Vyriy Industries as scaling partner

NOCTIS handles ZIRKA’s interception technology, software, and automation. At the same time, Vyriy Industries provides investment support and a manufacturing partnership to scale.

The engineering team drew on combat experience from the Darknode anti-Shahed battalion, a sub-unit of the 412th Nemesis Unmanned Systems Brigade.

Ukraine’s interceptor market: 40,000 delivered in January alone

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense took delivery of approximately 40,000 interceptor drones in January 2026 alone, and Zelenskyy has said Ukraine could scale to 2,000 per day with sufficient funding. 

Ukrainian interceptor prices have been dropping across the market as production has scaled. Skyfall’s P1-Sun destroyed more than 3,000 Shaheds at roughly $3,000 per unit in the first half of 2026. Wild Hornets’ Sting interceptor became the first drone control system approved to NATO standards in Ukraine in June 2026, with the platform having destroyed more than 600 aerial targets.