Balloon-Launched Drone To Intercept Long Range Kamikaze Drones Emerges In Ukraine
Pictures have appeared on social media showing work in Ukraine to turn a tethered aerostat – what is more colloquially called a balloon – into an elevated platform for launching kamikaze drones at incoming long-range one-way attack drones. This follows the emergence last year of a sensor system designed to detect and locate enemy drone operators mounted on the same type of aerostat.
The pictures of the balloon-based kamikaze drone launcher, seen in the post on X below, have been circulating online since earlier today. It is unclear to what degree the aerostat's manufacturer, Ukrainian startup Aerobavovna, is involved in this project, which is not mentioned on the company's website or its channel on the Telegram social media network at the time of writing.
The aforementioned aerostat-mounted counter-drone sensor system was developed and rolled out by a separate Ukrainian firm, Kvertus. TWZ has reached out to Aerobavovna for more information.
The Ukrainian company Aero Bavovna is developing an aerostat system to intercept Russian 'Shahed' UAVs.The balloon will carry an FPV fixed wing kamikaze ready to be dropped when a Shahed is detected by an infrared camera. https://t.co/u8qQSRu1Go https://t.co/KgEx0R9K5Q pic.twitter.com/oyA9Dd511v
— Roy
(@GrandpaRoy2) March 12, 2025
From the images that emerged so far, the system as it currently exists includes a launcher for a single fixed-wing kamikaze drone 'interceptor,' as well as a sensor array suspended from the underside of the aerostat and other equipment. The system is designed to attempt an intercept 'after detecting long-range kamikaze UAVs [uncrewed aerial vehicles] via an IR [infrared] camera,' according to a machine translation of a post on the @infomil_live Telegram channel, but this is unconfirmed.
Other details about the system, including what its full sensor suite consists of, what level of automation it has when it comes to detecting threats and/or attempting intercepts, and what roles any human operators play in its employment are unknown.
In general, elevating any sensor system helps provide a better line-of-sight field of view toward the horizon and improved 'look-down' coverage. A higher perch provides similar benefits for signal relay and electronic warfare suites. Aerobavovna currently advertises its aerostats as suitable for surveillance, general communications, and acting as signal relays for first-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones.
The use of aerostats and other lighter-than-air craft as elevated sensor nodes, and ones designed specifically to spot and track incoming threats, is hardly new. The U.S. Army's abortive Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) program is one of the best known examples. Other aerostat-based sensor systems have been and continue to be in service in the United States and other countries globally. The continued use of balloons for intelligence-gathering purposes was notably thrust back into the public consciousness after the shootdown of a Chinese spy balloon, as well as three still-unidentified objects, in and around U.S. and Canadian airspace in February 2023.
There has also been something of a resurgence in interest in using lighter-than-air platforms for early warning and general surveillance in recent years, including Poland's plan to deploy a line of aerostat-based Airspace and Surface Radar Reconnaissance (ARSS) systems. This has been driven in part by Russia's extensive use of both long-range one-way attack drones and cruise missiles – relatively small and low-flying threats that underscore the value of elevated 'look-down' sensor capabilities – in its ongoing war against Ukraine. Both sides in the conflict make regular use of various types of kamikaze drones, as well as ones capable of dropping small munitions, on and around the front lines, as well. As TWZ routinely points out, the threats posed by drones are not new and continue to grow in scale and scope, thanks now in part to advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, both on and off traditional battlefields around the world.
The idea of using balloons, airships, and other lighter-than-air platforms to launch drones, small munitions, and other payloads, is also not new. TWZ previously published an in-depth feature on Chinese work on balloon-launched drone swarms, which also touched on similar U.S. military efforts, which you can find here.
The use of various types of drones to try to intercept other uncrewed threats, as well as helicopters, has also become a commonplace feature of the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.
Ukrainian FPV drone attacks and destroys Russia's ZALA ISR UAV. https://t.co/gY01Xk5CqB pic.twitter.com/S03USttHDl
— Samuel Bendett (@sambendett) June 12, 2024
Mi-28N(M) smacked by Ukrainian AA FPV over Kursk, Russia pic.twitter.com/EUWxQEF9nV
— Cᴀʟɪʙʀᴇ Oʙsᴄᴜʀᴀ (@CalibreObscura) August 7, 2024
If the aerostat-mounted drone interceptor system works, it could offer a useful addition to Ukraine's defensive arsenal that could be readily deployed across the country. It might also be possible to tie in the balloon-based systems with other Ukrainian counter-drone and air defense capabilities, such as the country's low-cost acoustic sensor network consisting of thousands of microphones to detect incoming drones.
If the interceptor-armed aerostats are also relatively low cost and low footprint, they could be even more valuable for supplementing the Ukrainian military's other counter-drone capabilities and further reducing the strain on higher-end and prized air defense systems, especially those supplied by the West. Recent disruptions in U.S. military assistance have raised particular questions about Ukraine's air defense capabilities and overall capacity in the absence of such support.
Much remains to be learned about the counter-drone interceptor system utilizing the Aerobavovna aerostat. Its appearance does underscore the continually expanding efforts in Ukraine to address the very serious threats posed by kamikaze drones on and off the front lines.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
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СБУ оприлюднила нове відео зі спецоперації «Павутина»: кадри показують шлях одного з FPV-дронів від вильоту з даху модульного будинку до ураження літака — СБ України (@ServiceSsu) June 7, 2025 More recently, a tangential debate about whether or not the U.S. military should be investing more in hardened base infrastructure, particularly new reinforced aircraft shelters, has also emerged around a shift toward preparing for a potential high-end fight in the Pacific against China. That focus is underscored by ERDC having directly linked to the MPS-OHC upgrades to the Indo-Pacific region in the LinkedIn post. Large established air bases would be prime targets for Chinese forces, in general, in such a conflict. The U.S. military does have hardened aircraft shelters and other fortified infrastructure at a number of bases, including in South Korea and Japan, but has not made significant investments on this front since the end of the Cold War. 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Work now to establish a new and expansive air and missile defense architecture on Guam is a choice example of this 'active' defense focus. 'We've always known that hardening our bases is something that we need to do. And so we have that actually, in our budgets, to be able to get more resilient basing, and we have some hardening for the shelters, and we have some more survivable capabilities of our bases forward,' Gen. David Allvin, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, said at a conference put on by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank las tweek. 'Right now, I don't think it's where we need to be.' 'It's something that we haven't necessarily been ignoring, but it's been a matter of resource prioritization,' he continued, questioning whether it would be an optimal use of funding 'if all we're doing is playing defense and we can't shoot back.' 'So, we will have the need for bases, the main operating bases from which we operate,' Air Force Gen. Kevin Schneider, head of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), also said at the Air & Space Forces Association's (AFA) 2025 Warfare Symposium in March. 'The challenge becomes, at some point, we will need to move to austere locations. We will need to disaggregate the force. We will need to operate out of other locations, again, one for survivability, and two, again, to provide response options.' In line with Allvin's comments, Schneider added that these were all things that 'cost money' and force the Air Force to 'make internal trades,' such as 'do we put that dollar towards, you know, fixing the infrastructure at Kadena [Air Base in Japan] or do we put that dollar towards restoring an airfield at Tinian.' Though certainly not a silver bullet solution, Army MPS-OHC kits with added features to provide additional defense against drone attacks might provide one option for readily improving physical defenses at air bases and other facilities at a lower cost than traditional hardened structures. The MPS-OHC kits that exist now are orders of magnitude less expensive than new hardened aircraft shelters, which can cost millions of dollars apiece, though they also do not provide anywhere near that level of protection, especially against more powerful direct hits. The baseline kit options that exist now are also not large enough to readily hold a tactical jet, but it is possible they could be adapted to act as an aircraft shelter, especially if combined together. Still, in general, as TWZ has noted in the past, even unhardened shelters could provide at least a modicum of protection against drones with smaller warheads, cluster submunitions, and shrapnel from other munitions. Fully enclosed shelters of any kind would also make it harder for enemy forces to know where exactly to strike, potentially prompting them to waste valuable resources against empty targets. In the meantime, the U.S. military general downplaying of physical hardening at its bases is increasingly at odds with global trends. In recent years, China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, in particular, have been steadily constructing additional hardened and unhardened aircraft shelters, as well as even more robust facilities, some of which are built underneath mountains. Russia's construction spree began well before Ukraine's recent covert drone attacks, but had been largely focused on bases closer to the front lines, including on the occupied Crimean Peninsula. Protective shelters for warplanes are also being constructed by the Russians at the Saki Air Base in the — Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (BlueSky too) (@Archer83Able) June 9, 2025 The U.S. military also continues to lag behind in the development and fielding of counter-drone capabilities intended for use by forces downrange and at home. Inside the borders of the United States, an array of often obtuse laws and other regulations present further challenges for expanding counter-drone defenses, as you can read more about here. Passive defenses like hardened shelters and MPS-OHC kits are notably not subject to these stipulations, increasing their potential attractiveness for domestic use, at least in the near term. The U.S. military has been pushing for new counter-drone authorities within the U.S. homeland, as well. The recently announced upgrades to the MPS-OHC kits are an example of a new U.S. counter-drone capability that is actually in the process of being fielded, at least on some level, and one aimed at addressing increasingly glaring gaps in terms of physical defenses. Contact the author: joe@
