Cheap, mass-produced one-way drones have played a major role in the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran since the first attacks on Tehran on February 28. As Iran uses these drones to target energy facilities, airbases and other strategic sites across the Gulf and Israel, the US and Israel use expensive interceptor missiles for defence.To counter the drone threat, Gulf states and their US partners have turned to Ukrainian-made anti-drone technology, battle-tested against Russian drone attacks.In late March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar to offer counter-drone expertise, signing 10-year defence agreements with all three countries. He later confirmed that Ukrainian forces took part in active operations using domestically produced interceptor drones, shooting down Iranian Shaheds in several Gulf countries.According to the Reuters news agency, the US military has also deployed Sky Map, a Ukrainian command-and-control platform used to detect incoming drones, at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, with Ukrainian officers travelling to the base to train US warfighters on the software.In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera unpacks how Ukraine’s anti-drone systems work, what types of interceptors they use, and what types of drones they are being deployed against.What are Iran’s Shahed drones and how do they work?The Shahed-136 is an Iranian one-way attack drone that came to global prominence after Russia began using it in Ukraine in 2022. Advertisement The triangular-s …
