German defense AI firm Helsing has unveiled Contra, an AI-run air defense system and two interceptor missiles designed to chase Russia’s jet-powered Geran drones, the company announced on 26 October. Officials pitch it as cheap, but it won’t reach the market this winter.

That leaves Ukraine on its own defenses as Russia shifts to jet drones. By early October, jet models made up about 40% of Russian drone launches, and Ukraine’s own interceptors for them won’t arrive in needed numbers before late November, Air Force Deputy Commander Yurii Cherevashenko said.

Two missiles, one AI brain

Contra is the command layer of air defense: it links radars and other sensors, tracks incoming drones and missiles, and assigns a weapon to each target, while people keep control over decisions, Helsing said. Besides the company’s own missiles, it can also use other firms’ interceptors, lasers, guns, or nets. AD-1 Inferno is jet-powered and designed to loiter, swarm, and re-engage targets, while AD-2 Ambush, a solid-fuel rocket, is designed to reach Mach 2.5, over twice the speed of sound, and a range of more than 20 km, the company said.

Inferno, with a 700 km/h speed and a 20-km range, would be the everyday shooter. Ambush would handle “leakers,” drones about to hit the ground, said Maxwell Adams, Helsing’s senior product director. Each shot should cost under $100,000, company officials said.

Built for the faster Gerans

Ukraine once downed 90% of Russia’s slower, propeller-driven Gerans, copies of Iran’s Shahed, Defense News reported. Russia has since fielded thousands of jet Geran-4s and Geran-5s flying at 400–700 km/h, and almost half now get through, Helsing co-founder and co-CEO Gundbert Scherf said.

Ukraine’s own nightly rates swing widely. On 28 September, President Zelenskyy put the shoot-down rate for jet drones at 57%. Overnight on 7 October, it exceeded 82%, National Security and Defense Council Secretary Ihor Klymenko said. Russian output of the two models has reached 4,000 a month, Helsing said, citing unspecified intelligence reports.

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Helsing has signed one Contra contract, Scherf said, but the system is still in testing, and he expects it on the market in the second half of 2027. Ukraine already uses Helsing’s HX-2 strike drones. Scherf said they should be integrated into a system like Contra.

Ukraine has finished its share of FREYJA, a joint European project to build a system against ballistic missiles, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists on 17 October, Ukrinform reported. He added that Kyiv wants to test the first system as soon as possible.

Ukraine still relies on US-made Patriot interceptors to stop Russian ballistic missiles. Zelenskyy told ABC News on 23 October that Ukraine had received only 24 of them from the US in three months, while it needs 350 a month on average. FREYJA can not close that gap soon, because the system is still in development.

Ukraine’s missile and launcher, partners’ radars and sensors

Zelenskyy said the partners’ share of the work, with 10 countries taking part, is still underway. He also said he had discussed the project with French President Emmanuel Macron, and he named Norway as a key partner.

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Zelenskyy did not say what the partners still have to deliver. In August, he said Ukraine is capable of making the missile and launcher, while partners would supply critical components such as radars and sensors.

One part not made in Ukraine

In May, Fire Point co-founder and chief designer Denys Shtilerman said all components of the FP-7.x interceptor are made in Ukraine except one. “As for that one part we don’t manufacture in Ukraine, we’ve contracted a certain quantity of it. We already have it,” he said, but did not name the part.

In June, however, Shtilerman told the Financial Times that mass production depended on an infrared seeker Fire Point hoped to get from Germany’s Diehl Defence. Neither statement says whether the seeker is that one part.

Fire Point co-founder Iryna Terekh said in September that FREYJA was going through testing and technical integration in combat conditions in Ukraine. The company plans its first intercept of a ballistic target by mid-2027.

The official timeline has since moved closer. On 21 October, Zelenskyy wrote that officials had identified where to speed up so FREYJA reaches testing by the end of this year. A test is still a step short of an intercept.

Ukraine has waited almost a month for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on missiles for its Patriot and NASAMS air defense systems, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 26 October. He ordered his team to raise it with Washington again. Two other US holds on Ukraine, on Starlink speeds and intelligence sharing, have been lifted, leaving the interceptors as the last one.

Russia keeps firing ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities and the power grid before winter, and Patriots are the only systems in Ukraine that reliably stop Iskander-M, Kinzhal, and Zircon missiles. Zelenskyy has told EU leaders Ukraine needs 300 interceptors to get through winter, diplomatic sources told Radio Svoboda. The holds came as Washington pressed Kyiv to stop striking Russian refineries, which Trump blames for high US fuel prices before the midterms.

Zelenskyy: almost a month waiting for Hegseth’s signature

Zelenskyy held a meeting on weapons supplies with Ukraine’s defense minister, foreign minister, and commander-in-chief. They reported on interceptors for air defense, above all for Patriot systems. Afterward, Zelenskyy wrote:

“We are working in several directions: with the United States, Europe, and other partners that have stocks of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles. In particular, for almost a month we have been waiting for Mr. Hegseth’s signature on missiles for Patriots and NASAMS. I have instructed the team to discuss this with the American side once again.”

Talks with other countries continue, he added. The meeting also covered preparations for November’s Ramstein meeting of Ukraine’s allies, where Zelenskyy wants decisions already on the table carried out faster.

Allies’ missiles need US approval

Some of the transfers come from friendly countries and need Hegseth’s approval, because the US must sign off on any re-transfer of its missiles, a US official and three people familiar with the matter said on 19 October. Hegseth has neither refused nor approved them.

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A Ukrainian official said in mid-October that only “a couple” of interceptors were left. Hegseth has said the US wants “our guys” to have “the most possible” interceptors, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted nothing was “being deliberately denied to Ukraine.”

Two of three US holds lifted

In an interview aired on 25 October, Zelenskyy listed three problems from his Oslo talks with the Americans: air defense, Starlink limits, and limits on US intelligence sharing. Full Starlink speeds returned on 24 October, and missile warnings resumed after his 20 October call with Rubio. Progress on Patriot missiles is “very slow,” he said, “slower than the flight of Russian missiles.”

Kyiv has also tried to trade for the missiles. Zelenskyy told US senators he had offered US envoys a 30-day pause in strikes on Russian refineries in return for Patriot interceptors. The envoys showed no openness to the idea.

Trump has called those refinery strikes a disgrace that only pushes oil prices higher. He said it days after striking a deal with Putin to bring Russian diesel back to the US ahead of the midterm elections on 3 November.

Trump treats Ukraine as the weak link to squeeze and wants a visible win partly with US domestic politics in mind, Ukrainian diplomat Oleksandr Khara has argued.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine has agreed on a new package of Patriot interceptor missiles with an unnamed partner, Suspilne reported. He made the announcement on 24 September during a meeting with the Ukrainian community in the United States. Zelenskyy did not reveal the partner's identity, the quantity, or the delivery timeline.

Russia's aerial campaign against Ukrainian cities is heading into its most dangerous winter yet, with ballistic strikes on hospitals, power stations, and residential buildings pushing monthly civilian casualties to their highest level since the war's opening weeks. The gap between the interceptors Ukraine needs and what allies have so far committed has become a central factor in both the defense of Ukrainian cities and the diplomatic standoff.

What Zelenskyy said

Zelenskyy made the announcement during a broader address to the diaspora about diplomacy, the peace effort, and cooperation with US President Donald Trump's team.

"We agreed today—I won't say with whom—on a package of [interceptor] missiles for Patriot systems. This is an important decision," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Ukrainian diaspora in New York.

He gave no further details. Zelenskyy said ending the war was the most important question facing Ukraine and awarded decorations to community members who had contributed to the country's defense.

Before the New York trip, the interceptor question had been raised with several partners. After meeting Trump on 22 September, Zelenskyy said he had asked Washington for a winter package of Patriot interceptors. That same week, he pitched Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on air-defense cooperation, noting that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries runs the only plant outside the US licensed to assemble PAC-3 missiles. Suspilne noted the issue had also been discussed with other partners Zelenskyy did not name.

Intercepting more, but not enough

On 24 September, air defenses intercepted 60% of the ballistic missiles Russia fired at Kyiv—a figure the president called significant.

"It was 60%—not 10% and not zero. And this year we had moments when it was zero. Not because someone lacks experience, but because someone lacks missiles," Zelenskyy told journalists in New York.

Since 12 August, Ukraine's Air Force has stopped publishing detailed figures on how many missiles Russia launches, reporting only what it downs—which makes Zelenskyy's percentage a rare public benchmark. By that count, Russia has fired at least 794 ballistic missiles at Ukraine since January, about 43% of all missiles used this year, with July's 174 the monthly high.

The overnight attack

Hours after Zelenskyy spoke in New York, Russia launched 295 drones at Ukraine overnight on 24–25 September. In Odesa, Russian drones killed two people—a 40-year-old woman and a 51-year-old man—and injured two others. In Kyiv, Shaheds struck high-rises in Solomianskyi district, and strikes across the broader region killed a 14-year-old boy.

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Romania scrambled jets as drones drifted toward its airspace. A woman was injured in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and the morning brought further Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia and Poltava, injuring two more people.

The interceptor crisis

Zelenskyy's announcement lands in the middle of a worsening shortage. In August, he told CNN that Ukraine held roughly 1% of American Patriot stocks and that 5% would get Kyiv through the winter. ISW assessed the same month that the interceptor shortage was one reason Russia saw no incentive to negotiate.

The EU has moved to fill the gap. Brussels cleared Ukraine to spend loan money on Patriot missiles and later released €6.1 billion ($7.1 billion) for interceptors and drones. But Ukraine's air force commander warned that newly ordered missiles would arrive too late for this winter and asked the Ramstein coalition to open existing stockpiles.

At least one partner has now moved from discussion to commitment. The quantity and delivery date remain unknown, and Russia produces ballistic missiles faster than Ukraine's allies have so far been willing to part with the interceptors that stop them.

"We agreed today—I won't say with whom—on a package of [interceptor] missiles for Patriot systems. This is an important decision," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Ukrainian diaspora in New York.

"It was 60%—not 10% and not zero. And this year we had moments when it was zero. Not because someone lacks experience, but because someone lacks missiles," Zelenskyy told journalists in New York.