Interceptor Drones vs Shaheds: Inside Ukraine’s Night War

Indexed: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]A samurai has no goal, only a controller.

[00:00:13]There is a lot of action going on like we have our drones in the air. We have several shiads in the air.

[00:00:26]Ukrainian interceptor drones are getting a lot of attention right now. They're cheap, effective, a new solution against Russian Iranian shiads. We went to where this tech has been battle tested near the front.

[00:00:39]The world is on the edge. This is how headlines described Iran's retaliation attack. Hundreds of drones, missiles, regional shock. Now look at this. March 24, 2026. Russia launched nearly a thousand aerial targets on one country, Ukraine. Most of them didn't make it. No global panic, no breaking news headlines. And this is the part of the reason why.

[00:01:05]>> First, you need to assemble the drone.

[00:01:41]Mhm.

[00:01:46]>> The unit's called sign is samurai. They say a Samurai has no goal, only a controller.

[00:01:56]Once it's ready, this team has confirmed hits on several types of Russian drones. Some of them strike, others scout. Either way, they're all hard to spot with the naked eye. All deadly, all costly. Warm meth is simple. Everything costs money. Run out and you lose. And Samurai is working on that. We work on nighttime shahads, strike drones and daytime targets, molia, reconnaissance wings, orlands, zalas, super cams.

[00:02:42]We use high-speed drones.

[00:02:45]They can catch these targets.

[00:02:50]Before they flew at around 160 km per hour.

[00:02:56]Now they use jet engines and can go up to 300 km per hour.

[00:03:08]The shahad keeps evolving. jet engines, radar evading cotin, higher altitudes.

[00:03:17]>> Since 2022, I've been working on an old-fashioned anti-aircraft gun.

[00:03:27]The hit rate is very low. But even then, I managed to shoot down three shahads in one night.

[00:03:38]Back then they flew lower, slower, 120, 140, maybe 160 km per hour.

[00:03:48]You could hit them.

[00:03:51]Now they climb up to 5 km.

[00:03:54]Nothing can reach them anymore.

[00:03:57]Only an interceptor drone can find them up there and destroy them.

[00:04:03]Tonight is going to be busy.

[00:04:08]It's actually quite unnerving because each head can carry up to 90 kilos of TNT which is a which can destroy a building. It can destroy like apartment complex. So it's a huge actually warhead that's flying just above us somewhere that we cannot see. We know that they're somewhere around because our detectors, our raiders are picking them up.

[00:04:41]The guy is hunting them as as we speak, but it's quite difficult to do actually.

[00:04:46]So, we'll see how it's going to turn out.

[00:04:50]>> They're disappointed.

[00:04:51]>> The old interception rates are above 90%. Some still get through. Even one is too many.

[00:05:02]Sounds overlap. Locating a fastmoving shahad is hard. At night, even harder.

[00:05:22]mushroom.

[00:05:42]That's an Arabs drone been launched from a friendly position nearby. It's built in California. Now it's here somewhere.

[00:06:17]does not stop there.

[00:06:37]There is a lot of action going on like we have our drones in the air. We have several shahads in the air and we have other adjacent units also trying to hunt shahads just right now. And also we can hear like this mobile fire squads that trying to hit shahad with firearms from the from the ground.

[00:07:12]Finally, a fireball.

[00:07:15]5 10 18 seconds before the sound reaches us.

[00:07:22]That's around 6 km. It's within our range, but it's not ours. Another friendly unit got it.

[00:07:33]>> This is definitely technology to look for. With our last launch, we missed our target, but it's great that you can bring the drone back.

[00:07:44]>> As for the Samuray team, not today, unfortunately. The path to mastery takes time.

[00:07:53]>> We have the tools. We have the people.

[00:07:58]Everyone here understands this shahed could hit anywhere. Lviv, Turnopel, Nitzki, Venitzia, it doesn't matter. If you take it down here, you've saved something there. A school, a kindergarten.