A new Molniya every four minutes: how Ukraine is fighting back against Russia's drone onslaught on cities and logistics
Sad as it may sound, it isn't just the Ukrainian military that has learned to disrupt logistics with cheap drones launched from dozens of kilometres behind the front line.
Russian Molniya attack drones have become a major challenge for Ukraine's defence forces. Built from commercially available Chinese components, these drones feature simple rectangular wings and beam structures that are easy to manufacture, can be produced at scale quickly and do not require highly skilled workers.
The Molniya is essentially a build-it-yourself platform. It can be fitted with anti-tank land mines, grenades, mass-produced specialised munitions, or almost any other explosive payload Russian forces have at their disposal.
More recently, Russia has begun deploying modified Molniya variants capable of remotely laying explosive devices, delivering supplies and autonomous targeting enabled by machine vision.
Because of their simple design, Molniya drones can be launched from small shelters near trenches and even from flats in Soviet-era apartment blocks.
They strike Ukrainian trenches, shelters, houses, fences and even trees in an effort to deny Ukrainian troops safe cover and defensive positions.
For Ukrainian troops, tactical interceptor drones have become a lifeline against these Russian drones. Although they receive far less attention than the interceptors used against Shahed loitering munitions, their role is no less important.
An Ukrainska Pravda journalist has visited the positions of one of Ukraine's most effective drone interception units and a factory of the country's largest tactical interceptor drone manufacturer. Read on to find out how the Ukrainians are hunting down Molniya drones and the challenges faced by the military and engineers in keeping pace with the threat.
Molniya hunting
To find out how Molniya drones are intercepted, we travelled to the Zaporizhzhia front, where we visited the Posipaky UAV interception battalion of the 39th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment. The unit made history as the first in Ukraine's defence forces to down a Shahed using an interceptor drone.
Since the start of last year, the Posipaky have brought down more than 2,200 attack and bomber drones. Their success has earned them five consecutive Dronefall League titles, awarded in a competition between units participating in the Dronefall project run by the Come Back Alive Foundation, Ukraine's largest military charity.
The unit's mission is to defend Zaporizhzhia from drone attacks. To help it carry out that task, Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration and local businesses provide vital support to shield frontline communities from the daily terror attacks by Molniya drones.
"The enemy currently has around 500,000 Molniya drones in storage and deploys them daily against our logistics and positions," Serhii "Ramses" Minaiev, commander of the Posipaky UAV interception battalion, told Ukrainska Pravda. According to estimates by his drone pilots, in the most heavily contested sectors, a new Molniya appears every four minutes.
According to Minaiev, every Russian brigade now fields two or three Molniya drone crews tasked with tactical missions. They methodically wipe out houses in villages, utility poles, trees, shelters and even livestock, seeking to turn villages and wooded areas near the front into barren terrain that offers Ukrainian troops no cover.
Minaiev says Russian brigades are increasingly relying on Molniya units instead of artillery crews, whose operations have been curtailed by the threat from drones – especially since a single Molniya may cost less than an artillery shell.
The Ukrainian military estimates that electronic warfare systems take down around 70% of Molniya drones. Interceptor drones and machine guns account for another 15%. Yet roughly 10% still reach their target, and given the volume of drones Russia deploys, that is enough to inflict significant damage.
"Around Zaporizhzhia, seasoned Russian crews know how to exploit the terrain and what remains of the Kakhovka Reservoir," Minaiev said. "Their tactic is to keep the drones very low over the water along the shoreline, where they have stable communications for more than 40 km. More and more of them are using digital communication links that we can't jam. That allows the drones to stay below the radar horizon and only appear when they reach the southern outskirts of the city."
AI-equipped Molniya drones are becoming an increasingly common sight in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Operating in complete radio silence, they use onboard software to autonomously identify and home in on their targets.
According to Minaiev, most Molniya drones still use analogue communications. Their video feed can therefore be intercepted, allowing Ukrainian forces to determine their location and send interceptor drones after them.
"We have a lot of uncoordinated electronic warfare in the army," Minaiev said. "If it weren't for that, we'd be flying flawlessly. Using data from two radars, we can pinpoint the approximate location of the most dangerous drones. But our own electronic warfare systems distort that data, creating errors on the map. We still haven't found the right balance between interception, reconnaissance and electronic warfare."
As if that weren't enough, Russian cyber-attacks on Ukraine's situational awareness systems have become a constant threat. Their purpose is to slow or disrupt coordination between air defence units at all levels. The attacks become particularly intense ahead of large-scale missile and drone strikes.
The Posipaky unit has established workshops to upgrade the drones supplied under government contracts, and its engineering team develops and builds its own high-speed interceptor drones.
Each interceptor drone received under a government contract requires at least UAH 6,000 (about US$130) worth of upgrades, and the unit has to modify thousands of them.
According to Minaiev, the first priority is replacing the antennas and trigger boards. If a drone arrives with a poor-quality camera, that is swapped out as well.
At the position visited by an Ukrainska Pravda journalist, the unit was operating AIR, AIR Speed and Bullet interceptor drones made by General Chereshnia (General Cherry) as well as Sting drones produced by Dyki Shershni (Wild Hornets). According to the soldiers, these models require the fewest modifications before they are ready for combat.
Designed as a multi-role interceptor, the AIR is deployed against Molniya drones, FPV quadcopters and slow-flying reconnaissance drones. Its performance is sufficient to overtake a Molniya travelling at 110 km/h.
The AIR Speed is deployed against Lancets, Italmas drones and high-speed reconnaissance UAVs. Its higher speed comes at the expense of endurance, meaning the pilot must quickly judge whether the target can be caught before the drone has to turn back.
Bullet and Sting drones are used to hunt down Shaheds, which Russia uses in its daily attacks on Ukrainian cities and communities.
One of the Posipaky unit's most accomplished pilots told Ukrainska Pravda that bringing down Russian drones depends as much on accurate target designation as it does on the drones and the skills of their operators. Overlapping radar coverage and electronic warfare activity can make frontline operations extremely difficult. Small radars are further affected by changes in temperature and humidity, introducing additional errors.
Few targets are more dangerous – or more highly prized – than the Lancet. Flying in complete radio silence, it cannot be tracked by intercepting its video feed. By the time the Russian operator reconnects with the drone for the final approach, Ukrainian interceptor crews have little chance of stopping it.
The Russians are also adapting the flight profiles of Molniya drones to evade Ukrainian interceptors. On many routes, the drones now climb to altitudes of 1,500-2,000 m before diving steeply towards their targets.
Russian forces have also refined their tactic of deploying Molniya drones in pairs to outwit Ukrainian interceptor pilots. Two drones are launched at the same time, one around 50 m higher than the other. Once the interceptor commits to one target and destroys it, the second Molniya slips through.
"We spot the target on the screen," one of Posipaky's drone pilots says. "We move in and destroy the drone, but the picture doesn't disappear. We're left wondering what went wrong. Then we realise we've been looking at the feed from the lower Molniya all along, and by then it's too late to go after the second one."
Interceptor crews in Zaporizhzhia Oblast are increasingly bringing down Molniya variants equipped with high-quality optical gimbals. These drones operate behind the front line, searching for UAV pilots' hideouts and tracking the movement of supplies to their positions.
The Posipaky pilots have intercepted several of these drones. A subsequent examination by troops revealed that each had been carrying explosives.
"They've hidden a microphone inside the module. Once you start taking it apart and unplugging the components, it goes off," service members from the unit explain.
The same concept is now being applied to so-called mother drones, which deploy FPV drones and signal repeaters. It was these drones that enabled Russian forces to strike Zaporizhzhia a few weeks ago.
During our time with the crew, every drone that failed to acquire a target returned safely. Only one was lost after a propeller broke, causing it to lose control. The crew detonated it before it could hit the ground.
Yevhen Pylypenko, Commercial Director at General Chereshnia, says one of the company's top priorities is to phase out analogue communications, as the signal can be intercepted and used to trace an interceptor drone back to its landing site. Once a launch position is exposed, it quickly becomes a target for Russian drones and guided aerial bombs.
For now, however, pilots have learned to outwit the Russians by flying carefully planned "fake" return routes at the lowest possible altitude, preventing the signal from being intercepted.
How Molniya interceptors are made
We visited the factory where one of the most widely used interceptor drones in Ukraine's defence forces is produced – a drone operated by the Posipaky unit, among others.
At General Chereshnia, the focus is on producing a range of small interceptor drones – or "tactical interceptor drones", as the company refers to them – that are used to destroy a significant number of Russian Molniyas.
The General Chereshnia AIR, the company's main interceptor drone, was introduced in May 2025 to counter Russian reconnaissance aircraft operating over Ukrainian forces' training grounds. After these overflights, the training sites would be struck with ballistic missiles or Shahed drones.
The AIR interceptor is built on a 10-inch frame and can reach speeds of up to 170 km/h. It can climb to an altitude of 6,000 m and has a combat range of 24 km, or around 35 minutes of flight time.
In response to the emergence of Ukrainian interceptors and the heavy losses suffered by their reconnaissance drones, Russian forces began upgrading their UAVs with evasion systems and increasing their speed. The developers responded by creating a new high-speed interceptor variant – the General Chereshnia AIR Speed.
With an 8-inch frame and a top speed of 240 km/h, the drone was designed to chase faster targets. It can engage reconnaissance drones and loitering munitions such as the Lancet and even has the potential to intercept Shaheds in the area closest to their launch sites.
These frontline interceptor drones are ideally suited to countering the cheap Molniya attack drones that Russian forces launch relentlessly to disrupt Ukrainian logistics.
"When the Russians began deploying them on a massive scale across almost every brigade, dozens of variants appeared in the sky, including drones with digital communications," Pylypenko said. "The impact on our logistics and positions was immediate, and our units switched to the simple tactical interceptors we already had available."
Large-scale state procurement of interceptors through direct contracts began towards the end of 2025. Since then, demand has surged: General Chereshnia now supplies more than 100 units, and the number of orders has doubled in the last six months alone.
Pylypenko has not disclosed exact figures but said that 70% of all deliveries consist of the AIR interceptor variant. The remaining 30% are made up of AIR Speed interceptors and the high-speed Bullet, designed to counter Shahed drones.
"The Russians are constantly improving their Molniya drones," says the head of one of General Chereshnia's interceptor production facilities, who requested anonymity. "The AIR used to be able to catch them at 70-80% of its available power. That is no longer the case. We have had to upgrade the platform itself, adding batteries with high-current cells to increase power output. That required changes across the production line, from higher-temperature solder to more durable components."
What we saw at the facility suggests that battery improvements are next on the manufacturer's agenda. Increasing flight time without sacrificing speed is crucial for patrol missions and would also allow operators to recover the drone if an interception attempt fails.
Looking ahead, both the Posipaky unit and the manufacturer expect a shift towards patrolling the skies with mother drones equipped with repeaters. These drones can remain airborne for several hours, significantly reducing the time needed to prepare for launch and reach operational altitude.
Vladyslav Khrystoforov
Translated by Artem Yakymyshyn
Edited by Anastasiia Kolesnykova