In addition to the Shahed, there is another major threat that is less talked about publicly. These are Russian FPV drones in frontline cities that constantly terrorize the local population.
In Kherson region, Russians killed a one-year-old child with a "reset". In Nikopol, the occupiers hit a car with a family and a four-year-old girl with a drone. In Pokrovsk, a drone flew into the city center and injured two people of retirement age.
These are far from isolated cases. UP previously wrote about a safari that the Russians organized for local residents of the Kherson region. Similar news appears from time to time and is increasingly taken "for granted."
The threat of FPV drones, without exaggeration, is constantly hanging in the air in frontline cities. Local Telegram channels report drone attacks every half hour, or even more often.
There are two reasons for this. First, the Russians have more drones. Second, they have learned to fly tens of kilometers using special equipment – repeaters. This means that much more cities will soon be hit. For example, Sumy and Kharkiv.
Protecting cities from the terror of FPV drones needs to be thought about now. The military, manufacturers, the state, and local governments need to enter into a serious dialogue to find a comprehensive solution to the problem and scale it to all populated areas.
Some work is already underway to protect the population, but it is still not enough to make frontline cities even relatively safe.
Interviewed by Defense interlocutors from the defense industry agree that this should be an automated system with unified control. So that the city's defenders can see the direction of the drone's movement and remotely turn on the means of suppressing them in each specific area.
How exactly to equip such a protection system, where to start, what tools to use, and how much it will cost cities - Ukrainian electronic warfare manufacturers answer.
Yaroslav Kalinin, "Infosecurity"
There are a lot of cheap "dome" electronic warfare devices on the market, but they protect just like the icons on the dashboard of a car. Covering all the roofs in the city with these devices is not an option. Such devices have a number of architectural problems, and this electronic warfare is quite imperfect in the sense that it cannot be controlled as a single system. This means conducting electronic reconnaissance to search for drones and competently combining it with electronic warfare means for suppression.
Let's take a hypothetical Nikopol. This is a 10x10 km object. We need to understand what we can do with a specific drone flying over the city, delimit the zones of responsibility, not interfere with electronic intelligence units, and turn on electronic warfare only when it really helps, and not just mindlessly turn on various means, giving all the locations to the Russians.
When we have a "smart" system, we can put directional antennas and thus increase the suppression radius. For example, instead of 300 meters, we can suppress a target in a specific direction at a distance of 3 km. But for this we need to know from which direction the drone is flying, so I mentioned the importance of working in a team with electronic intelligence.
In frontline cities, there are already electronic intelligence and electronic support units operating Ukrainian and imported equipment. They receive daily data on what frequencies and types of signals enemy aircraft are operating on: from FPV drones to large "wings".
But the military usually only has enough resources to cover its own positions. And even with all the desire, there is often not enough equipment to fully protect civilian infrastructure.
That is why, to protect cities, we need to understand what piece of the puzzle is missing in this military combination of RER and EW in order to solve the problem of protecting the city as a whole, and not just military facilities.
For example, add sensors that will block central streets or sleeping areas. Add suppression equipment that can be remotely controlled and reprogrammed. These should be both dome-based and directional (depending on what is effective for protecting a particular area).
To implement this, regional military administrations (OVA) should enter into a dialogue with the Main Directorate of Radio Electronic and Cyber Warfare. Local officials should say: "we are not experts in electronic warfare, but we can find money to cover civilian areas." And purchase with their own money those means that can be included in a single countermeasure system, place them in the city and transfer them under the control of the military. Such means exist, and there is no need to build a system from scratch.
Some cities are already allocating money for self-defense, but this is more about protection against Shaheds. You can also get involved against FPV drones.
But the OVA will never be able to do it alone. The only way is to turn to the military to integrate into their system, purchase the necessary equipment, and help maintain it.
At the same time, the military will already build a detection boundary themselves. It will trigger suppression means that will already be programmed to the frequencies of enemy UAVs.
It is quite realistic to get effective protection of a 3 km area with one station for 2 million UAH. Such electronic warfare devices consume up to 2 kilowatts of electricity (like an electric kettle), so for them to work, it is enough to have a socket nearby in the house.
That is, to protect a hypothetical Nikopol (up to 100 thousand inhabitants), we will need about 10 such stations. Accordingly, to eliminate the issue of FPV drones in a city of this size, it is necessary to spend tens of millions of hryvnias, provided that these means are included in the existing electronic intelligence system.
Combining different electronic warfare and electronic warfare means is a technical challenge, because today we have a zoo of different systems and a zoo of subsystems. In order for them to work together, there must be some unification between the means, which is now being undertaken by the Ministry of Strategic Industry together with the 69th Electronic Support Center. They are now thinking about how to create this "patchwork quilt" of different models of electronic warfare and electronic warfare and not feel discomfort. And this is very right.
Serhiy Skoryk, Kvertus
If we're talking about protecting cities from FPV drones, we have the Atlas complex. It's an Azimut detection system and a Mirage suppression system working together.
Azimut is a passive detection (detection). This means that it is constantly working and receiving a signal, and at the same time it is not visible to the Russians. "Atlas" allows you to install any number of such detections on the strip, which are combined with suppression means via the Internet.
Imagine that you have a building in your city where an operator sits, fully sees what is happening and with one button generates interference in the right place at the right time. This is exactly our solution.
To do this, you first need to place Azimut detection at high points in the areas where FPV drones will fly. Preferably 7-8 km from the line of contact so that they are not visible visually.
In parallel, we are installing Mirage systems, which have a 2.5 km "dome" of protection. For a city of 100,000 people, you need to install about 100-150 of these at the highest points so that they do not interfere with each other.
When Azimut spots a drone, the operator gives a command to which of the hundreds of integrated suppression systems should be activated to destroy the threat. Some Russian drones have specific firmware: they fly in different ranges, change frequency. But the Mirage copes with them, because it has several signal amplifiers and can operate on several frequencies at once.
This suppression device consumes only 150 watts of electricity at peak power. This means it can operate for a long time even from a generator, if necessary.
To close a strip 30 km wide, you need 10 "Azimuths" and 50 "Mirages". One "Azimuth" costs 2.1 million UAH, one "Mirage" costs 640 thousand UAH. That is, closing such a strip will cost about 50 million UAH.
There is a system for protecting cities from FPV drones. It is impossible to say whether it is bad or not. The enemy is simply developing. If he has a task to get to a certain point, he will find ways to do it.
EW cannot guarantee complete protection, and a certain percentage will definitely get through even if we completely shut everything down. But we can do everything we can to block at least 80% of threats.
Anatoly Khrapchinsky, Piranha Tech
There are some attempts to solve the problem of FPV drones in cities, but frankly, right now these are mostly point stories: protection of individual objects, local initiatives, attempts to combine the resources of businesses, farmers, volunteers. This is not a systematic approach.
There are companies in Ukraine that can create an effective multi-level system of protecting cities from FPV drones if they do not work separately, but join forces.
Before starting defense, it is necessary to carefully study the relief and structure of the city, the density of buildings, the location of the main strategic objects, and assess the main directions of threats. By the way, it is important to do the same at the front.
Perhaps the first important element of countermeasures is the detection system (drone detection). Here we are helped by active and passive radar systems, electronic intelligence, and various sound, visual, and thermal sensors.
Next, we are rebuilding the main elements of drone suppression, taking into account all the calculations we received during the assessment of the terrain. This includes operational, operational-tactical, and strategic systems that cover the entire city in sectors.
In my opinion, any city can be protected, but the formation of protection must be approached cautiously with an understanding of the depth of the threat, and not just "give us one system that will cover the entire city."
There should be a control center. And it should not look like a checkpoint with binoculars, but like a subway control room, a traffic light control center, or, for example, a "Smart City" platform.
Such a center monitors the power supply of system elements throughout the city, their performance, detection signals, logic, and reactions. And most importantly, it should be a permanent structure. The operators may be representatives of municipal security, the police, or the National Guard, depending on the city and available resources.
If we talk about technical infrastructure, I would deploy such systems based on existing mobile communication towers.
Why am I comparing this to civilian infrastructure centers? Because the threat is no longer "temporary," and it's not going away.
It is more difficult to close a city from drones than on the front. In frontline conditions, the system operates in the field, with minimal infrastructure requirements, with a clear threat line and the ability to act roughly but effectively. In a city, the logic of building defenses is different, there are other threat scenarios, and other limitations on the use of means.
Here it is not just necessary to jam or knock something down. It is necessary to take into account the density of buildings, the presence of civilian traffic, medical systems, emergency services, electronic communications. Integration into the urban environment is important here: through roof structures, communication towers, backup power sources, control centers. And most importantly, all this must work in conditions where "noise" in the radio air is the norm.
As for the cost, there will be no single figure here, it all depends on the task. If the city wants to close only certain sectors, critical facilities, government buildings or infrastructure nodes, this is one budget. If we are talking about wider coverage, integration with cameras, thermal sensors, automated control systems, then the amount will be completely different. If we are talking about a complete system with a multi-level structure: detection, identification, reaction, this is a story with a separate budget with engineering design and constant maintenance.
The cost of full coverage of the city, if we are not talking about imitation, but real protection with all nodes, reserves, and dispatching, can reach 15–20 million dollars. And this does not include the costs of maintenance, personnel training, and modernization.
This is an approximate calculation for a medium-sized city. This refers to a city like Sumy, Nikopol, Kramatorsk, or Kherson: with a population of 100,000–200,000, moderate building density, mixed structure, residential areas, infrastructure, industrial zones, and no super-high-rise buildings.
In such a city, it is possible to relatively clearly divide the territory into sectors and gradually deploy an echeloned protection system with detection, response, and dispatch logic. And the cost will scale according to the degree of coverage.
If we are talking about megacities like Kyiv or Kharkiv, it is a completely different scale and completely different budgets. There, the bill can run into tens of millions of dollars even for partial coverage. And in smaller cities, on the contrary, the cost may be lower, but the tasks remain the same: accuracy, speed, reliability.
Returning to the issue of cost, I would like to note one more thing. We have the opportunity to test and bring to working condition a reliable model of urban protection against drones, and in the future offer it as a ready-made, export-capable solution for our Western partners. Therefore, investing in such systems is not only about security, but also about new opportunities: both for the defense industry and for technological sovereignty.