Ukraine has about six months to develop low-cost interceptor missiles capable of countering a new type of small Russian cruise missile.
Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a freelance adviser to the President on technological issues and a technology expert, said this in an interview with Radio NV.
“We literally have about six months to develop and build our own low-cost solid-fuel missiles capable of dealing with the problem posed by cheap Russian cruise missiles,” he said.
According to Beskrestnov, Russia is already working on the next generation of strike weapons intended to succeed jet-powered Shahed drones.
“The Russians also understand that we will soon have jet-powered interceptors and will be able to protect Kyiv. But they are now working on and betting on the next iteration. These are already small, cheap cruise missiles,” the freelance presidential adviser said.
He included several Russian systems in this category, which he identified as Banderol, Dan-T, Dan-M and Gerbera-5. Such weapons will be faster, capable of active manoeuvring and able to fly at very low altitudes.
“We have intelligence data, and we can see that they have contracted for these missiles in roughly the same quantities as jet-powered Shaheds. And they are going to bet on them,” Beskrestnov added.
The freelance presidential adviser stressed that the development of new interceptors must begin now, as systems designed to counter jet-powered Shaheds may not be effective enough against faster targets.
“In five months, jet-powered interceptors will no longer work against them because their speed will be even higher. We need to develop cheap Ukrainian missiles to destroy all of this,” he stressed.
Beskrestnov also said that Ukrainian developers are currently working on several types of high-speed interceptors to counter jet-powered Shahed drones.
