When Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered anti-drone experts to travel to Gulf nations to help tackle the Shahed threat, the news was reported as a transfer of expertise.
Lt Gen Nick Perry, chief of UK joint operations, warned on Thursday that Iran was improving its tactics as it carried out drone attacks on its neighbours. “They are flying them much lower and therefore they are more effective,” he said of the Iranians in a public review of the near two-week conflict. “It is the drones that are causing the biggest problem for our allies across the region.”
As a team of Ukrainian drone advisers arrive in the region, a drone interceptor company claims to have fielded interest from Gulf states eager to rapidly deploy weapons to defend against Iran’s Shahed-136 threat.
It is thought Blaze, which has already been delivered to four European Nato countries, could deal with Shahed attacks on the region.
“We’ve been bombarded with interest,” said Agris Kipurs, co-founder of Origin Robotic, the company that made the system. “It’s all very new and developing very fast.”
Ukraine support
Teams of Ukrainian specialists are now arriving in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to give their advice on drone attacks after years of bombing by Russia on their homeland.
Mr Zelenskyy said in a video address: “Ukraine has the greatest experience in the world in countering attack drones and, without our experience, it will be very difficult for the Gulf region, the entire Middle East, and partners in Europe and America to build strong protection.”
The Ukrainian teams' arrival in the region will “help protect lives and stabilise the situation”, he vowed.
Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey said Russia had helped Iran improve its drone tactics this week, teaching dispatchers to fly low, making the drones harder to detect.
“I think no one will be surprised to believe that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially some of their capabilities as well,” he told Lt Gen Perry.
Cheap, slow-flying drones have been used extensively by Iran against Gulf states and by Russia for attacks on Ukraine’s cities.
Mr Kipurs believes his Latvian company’s weapons could be particularly effective, as they can be quickly paired with existing radar networks in the region. “Countries like the UAE already have the necessary sensors,” he said. “Once coupled with an interceptor, that would do an effective job.”
Asked whether systems such as Blaze would be useful in defending against Shahed-style attacks, he was unequivocal: “It’s a must.”
Battlefield testing
The emergence of drones in the Iran war – weapons that had previously been largely restricted to the Ukraine conflict – means many more countries are waking up to the threat, with interceptor drones such as Blaze emerging as a practical solution.
“This new type of threat – relatively low-cost, relatively slow-flying aerial targets – is something that existing air defence systems were not designed to deal with,” Mr Kipurs said. “Interceptor drones are something every country will end up relying on.”
Blaze has already undergone testing in Ukraine, although not with live warheads. Trials focused on validating the drone’s autonomous ability to find airborne targets and chase them down. It is now considered battlefield-tested.
Hundreds of units have already been delivered, with thousands more on order, the company said, leaving scaling-up production as the main challenge. As yet, the Nato countries that bought Blaze have not donated it to Ukraine or the Gulf but that could change if the wars intensify.
Seek and destroy
Blaze works with a ground-based radar providing the initial track that gives the interceptor the target area during the first phase of its flight.
“The interceptor flies autonomously during that first phase before positioning itself behind the target,” said Mr Kipurs.
Once in range, Blaze switches to onboard sensors, including thermal and daylight cameras mounted on a gimbal system that provides a wide field of view. An AI-driven computer vision model then detects and tracks the target.
At that stage, a human operator remains in the loop. “The operator sees the target on his controller and is asked to confirm interception,” Mr Kipurs said. “If the decision is to intercept, that’s when Blaze’s computer vision takes over.”
It rapidly accelerates towards the target and detonates an 800-gram fragmentation warhead in proximity, killing its fellow drone.
Autonomy is a key capability and means training operators is brief, lasting three or four days, again making it appealing in the current conflict.
It has a range of about 25 kilometres, can reach speeds of up to 300kph and operate at altitudes of 3,000 metres.
In cost terms, the price is estimated to be roughly $20,000–$30,000 per unit, broadly similar to many variants of the Shahed drones it is designed to intercept.
Sporting roots
Origin Robotics traces its technological roots to consumer drone development. Before it entered defence markets, the company created AirDog, an autonomous camera drone launched in 2015 that could follow athletes during activities such as skiing or watersports.
“Think of it as a flying GoPro,” Mr Kipurs said, with athletes wearing a wrist device containing sensors that allows the drone to track their motion using sensor-fusion technology.
“We were the first in the world to ship an unmanned system that no longer required manual flying,” he added.
The company later moved into military systems, last year developing Beak, a precision-strike drone currently deployed in several European countries and used by Ukrainian forces that can hit targets from 15km and withstand heavy jamming.
