{"id":417144,"date":"2025-09-12T00:44:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/417144\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T00:44:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:44:16","slug":"uk-to-produce-ukraine-designed-interceptor-drones-supply-thousands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/417144\/","title":{"rendered":"UK to produce Ukraine-designed interceptor drones, supply thousands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">LONDON \u2014 The United Kingdom will scale up interceptor-drone technology developed by Ukraine and plans to deliver thousands of drones to the embattled country every month, Defence Secretary John Healey said at the DSEI UK defense show here on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Under Project Octopus, Ukraine will share intellectual property related to an interceptor drone that has been \u201chighly effective\u201d against Shahed one-way attack drones, Healey said, following an agreement signed with his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">In return, the U.K. will further develop and mass produce the drones, which Healey says cost less than 10% of the Russian systems they destroy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">With Ukraine and Russia deploying drones on the battlefield in the millions, the race is on to develop cost-effective counters, a focus at DSEI UK this year. While Healey didn\u2019t elaborate on the cost of the interceptor drone, the Center for Strategic and International Studies put the estimated cost of a Shahed at $35,000 in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csis.org\/analysis\/calculating-cost-effectiveness-russias-drone-strikes?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">\u201cOur Ukrainian friends will share this technology and the IP with the U.K.,\u201d Healey said. \u201cIn turn, together we\u2019ll rapidly develop this further, and then mass produce it, supplying thousands of interceptor drones back into Ukraine each month.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">The agreement follows an announcement this month by drone maker Ukrspecsystems to invest \u00a3200 million in two manufacturing facilities in the U.K., the first major investment by a Ukrainian defense company in the country, Healey said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">For the U.K., the agreement gives it access to what Healey called Ukraine\u2019s world-leading technologies and speed of innovation, while Britain can provide advanced manufacturing and robotics. He said the challenge is to demonstrate that the U.K. can add value to what he called a \u201cstand-out innovating and manufacturing system\u201d in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s lots of potential, but the challenge now is, can we deliver on our side of what we promise the Ukrainians?\u201d Healey said. \u201cAnd if we can over the next few months, that you\u2019ll start to see Britain making an even more significant contribution to their defense and their medium-term prospects, and to stepping up the speed and the equipping our own forces with what\u2019s needed for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__BioWrapper-sc-cy7r53-0 eATlTY a-body2\">Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 The United Kingdom will scale up interceptor-drone technology developed by Ukraine and plans to deliver thousands&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[748,5606,5607,5602,135524,393,2000,299,142935,142936,16,657,55631],"class_list":{"0":"post-417144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-circulated-defense-news","10":"tag-defense-news","11":"tag-dn-dnr","12":"tag-dsei-2025","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-europe","16":"tag-interceptor-drone","17":"tag-john-healy","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-unmanned"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115188561840199754","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}