Ukraine Downs Drones for $10,000, US Uses $4M Missiles, Zelensky Says

Ukraine is intercepting drones with systems costing as little as $10,000, while the United States and its allies rely on missiles costing up to $4 million per shot, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published Monday.

Speaking to The New York Post, Zelensky said the growing use of drones is reshaping modern warfare, making traditional missile-based air defense increasingly inefficient.

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“Everyone is using hundreds and thousands of drones,” Zelensky said.

He said Russia is already launching between 350 and 500 drones per day at Ukraine, with plans to increase that number to as many as 1,000.

According to Zelensky, Ukraine has adapted by deploying cheaper interceptor drones and other cost-effective systems instead of relying on expensive missile defenses.

Zelensky said the increasing use of drones could challenge even the world’s most advanced militaries, including the United States.

“A drone has no distance,” he said, noting that their range and scale of deployment continue to grow.

Ukraine, he added, has become a testing ground for new forms of warfare, gaining extensive experience in countering Iranian-designed Shahed drones widely used by Russia.

Zelensky said Kyiv is proposing a joint drone initiative with the United States that would combine US industrial capacity with Ukraine’s battlefield experience.

“We could build the world’s biggest drone factory,” he said.

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He added that such cooperation could help protect US forces and allies from drone threats globally, including in the Middle East.

Zelensky said on March 9 that Ukraine will send drone specialists to the Middle East as Kyiv seeks to trade its expertise in countering Iranian-designed drones for additional US-made air defense missiles.