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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
A year ago Serhiy Prytula’s Fund team launched “Yedynozbir” — a project to fight Russian Shaheds. Since then crews have struck more than 2 500 enemy targets.
And today they face a new challenge — jet unmanned aerial vehicles (new versions of the Geran and the “banderoles”),
the effectiveness of which the Russians understand and are exploiting as a window of opportunity. Meanwhile Ukraine is looking for affordable countermeasures at various levels.
How this works at the level of a charitable organization we spoke about with Andriy Shuvalov, director of Serhiy Prytula’s Fund. We also talked about the development of the defense industry in Ukraine and requests from
the military.
Andriy Shuvalov
Searching for tools and technologies
What do the administrative and technical selection processes for participants, solutions, and technologies for such projects look like?
“Yedynozbir” did not appear on its own. The Fund had several air defense projects to shoot down both Shaheds and missiles. But all this time the enemy was modernizing the Shahed. And when it gained altitude and speed, we turned to interceptors.
At that time Merops was only just entering the market and conducting its first tests. A month later — the first Ukrainian system shot down a Shahed. We understood that the technology existed and how it would work. We launched “Yedynozbir” to scale up a number of manufacturers so the state would come to them and start procuring these drones by the thousands. We involved businesses, competent military personnel, state bodies, and foreign organizations.
The goal is one billion hryvnias, but drones alone aren’t enough: we also train pilots, refit command-and-staff vehicles, buy communications and power supplies so operators can work with them.
To date we decided to combine our two major drives. That’s “Chyste Nebo,” where we shoot down enemy reconnaissance drones, and “Yedynozbir.” And we raised the goal to 1,25 billion UAH. Because when a crew has a weapon and there’s either a reconnaissance drone or a Shahed over it, they won’t choose which project to take the device from.
Andriy Shuvalov with an interceptor drone
How many manufacturers came at the start of the project? Am I right that manufacturers approached you with proposals?
At that moment there was a task from the state and from us as well — to find a solution. So at some point we acted as catalysts for manufacturers: here we’ll improve this, here we’ll find something. Can we help to improve your system so it gains speed, altitude, a better camera?
So these were manufacturers who already had interceptor prototypes, and you helped them?
Yes, these were manufacturers we had worked with on reconnaissance drones. For example, Taras-P — one of the best systems that shot down reconnaissance drones — we pushed them to make a modified system that would catch up with and shoot down Shaheds. The same with STING, which we began buying. Also Shulyka and Elf, and later P1-SUN appeared.
So you already have a list of manufacturers you work with? And updates are being refined?
I can’t say there is a certain list we work with. We are constantly searching to improve the system, price, and technical specs. For example, Taras-P, which I mentioned, has today made one system that can shoot down both reconnaissance drones and Shaheds. It’s airplane-type.
Now Vyriy made a new system — “Zirka” — and we are beginning to contract it too.
We constantly watch the market and the systems so we can have the information to procure effectively.
Using Zirka as an example: the manufacturer releases a product and first it goes to unit testing, and then the units come to you: look, it exists, can you contract it? Is that how it happens?
The fund actually has several stages of purchasing a given system. Indeed, one option is when the military come with a tested system and say: 'please procure this because we trust it.' We, of course, check whether it matches the technical characteristics described.
There’s another story when the military set us a task. For example, the operation in Krynky required building logistics across a river. The marines came and set a clear task: it should carry a certain number of kilograms, have a certain communications suite, operate at night, be easy to control. And, of course, it had to be cheap. We went to several manufacturers with that task.
Or, for example, at the end of 2022 year 73 the Naval Center of the Special Operations Forces approached us regarding procurement of military boats. At that moment we didn’t have a large number of military boats as such. Together with 73 the Naval Center and one civilian boat manufacturer we refitted their vessels. Today that is large-scale production of Ukrainian boats that operate in the Defense Forces.
I understand the timeline depends on the complexity of the solution, but how long does the procedure usually take: the military come, give a task, search, agreements, development, and a finished product?
It varies. It depends on complexity and cost. For example, the team is now working on a Shahed detection option without radars. That requires expensive equipment with good software. And that requires resources. That’s about requests from the military.
But the fund also has its own expertise and understanding of problems based on constant communication with the military. One case was in the south, when during an enemy Shahed attack they turned on EW systems that jammed GPS. And when GPS is jammed, the drone operator loses awareness of where their aircraft is. On land it’s a bit easier to orient oneself, but at sea you can’t see anything.
Andriy Shuvalov during delivery of equipment to the military
So roughly eight months ago the idea arose to build a network of beacons in the south; we internally called this project “Mayachnya.” Kyrylo Lyukov, head of the unmanned technologies department, led it. We simply placed beacons along the coast, on buoys, so the aircraft would have a connection to those beacons and thanks to them the pilot could determine whether it was a board at that moment. This helped both in shooting down enemy targets and in returning the drone if the target was not found.
And that network is now scaled; it’s almost set from north to south.
How often does a manufacturer come and ask you to connect them with the military because they have a certain product? How effective is that option?
Mostly, if there is an understanding of the front’s request, it’s effective. And that can look different. Not only does the fund buy the system, but it can bring together two manufacturers: if one, for example, has good communications and another has a good aircraft that needs good communications. We have such cases.
Of course there is Brave1, where they communicate, but there are still single cases where guys in a garage or a small enterprise make something that isn’t yet a finished product.
By the way, about Brave1: does Brave1’s parallel activity and that of funds like yours ever contradict each other? Has something been duplicated? How do you communicate?
We synchronized just days ago: we had good communications and Brave1 didn’t. We contacted them and talked it through.
So it’s only about complementing, not competing. Brave1 has something, we have something — we connected, talked, complemented, gave opportunities, showed, highlighted.
The Fund today is, of course, about procuring and transferring systems and materiel, but also about searching for solutions and working with innovations, because technologies change rapidly.
Technology lives on the battlefield on average four months. The enemy constantly finds countermeasures or applies new tactics, as with the Shaheds.
How did you synchronize the “Yedynozbir” project with short-range air defense?
It started with a meeting at the Ministry of Defense conducted by Oleksiy Vyskub. He clearly said we needed to understand what the state is buying and in what quantities so we wouldn’t duplicate but reinforce each other. We understood the state was covering a number of manufacturers, and there were ones the state had not purchased and likely would not, because the budget wasn’t enough. We went to buy those systems.
Cooperation with the Air Force, cooperation with 1020, with Nemesis, who were in that drive at the time, helps us have expertise to provide systems to crews working on sections where Shaheds fly.
At the same time we are developing a direction to reduce risks for crews themselves — strengthening remote control. That’s when the operator is in a safe, comfortable place and can shoot down drones in any part of the territory where launchers are already set up for operation.
Are you already working on remote control or just starting?
We’ve been working for about four to five months. We worked here with the Main Intelligence Directorate; a manufacturer “Techno Taras” was involved in parallel. Now STING has this capability, LITAVR is scaling remote control, and it works.
There were isolated cases when the enemy, having made the Shahed controllable, hunted interceptor operators. With remote control we can have, effectively, one efficient operator with good kill rates who can work in the south, north, east, or center of the country while sitting in safe conditions.
How do the operators themselves react? I’ve heard some feel nostalgic for working on the front line.
It varies. One thing is to sit on a position in the field, another is to sit in a comfortable office, maybe with filtered coffee under air conditioning, with the ability to take a shower or sleep. Those are completely different conditions. The better the conditions for the operator, the better their effectiveness.
Maybe there is some nostalgia among the guys and girls, but comfort wins. And safety first.
Countering Shaheds
With continuous attacks by jet Shaheds it may seem that conventional Shaheds are no longer a threat. What is the real situation?
In fact the conventional Shahed is no less dangerous than the jet one. We saw hits by conventional Shaheds on moving locomotives. It can be guided, it can be a carrier (there are recorded cases where FPV drones were placed on a Shahed’s wings). So you can’t say a conventional Shahed is not dangerous. It can be even more dangerous.
Of course their effectiveness has fallen now because Ukraine has scaled up countermeasures. But you still can’t neglect them.
But the effective short-range air defense system Ukraine has built has significantly reduced the effectiveness of Geran-2 with internal combustion engines (conventional Shaheds) to 10–20%.
Farmers display a Russian drone shot down over their field in Kyiv region, 3 August 2025 year
Does this affect their launch rate and production tempo, if such information exists?
There’s currently no updated statistics.
But it’s known that due to the decreased effectiveness of conventional Shaheds, Russia scaled up launches of jet ones. For this it refitted launch sites, increased jet production, and localized it.
(Recently the presidential advisor Serhiy (Flesch) Beskrestnov said the Russians deliberately waited for bleak rainy weather to carry out a massive attack with conventional gasoline Shaheds on western and rear regions of Ukraine. — Ed.)
We are fighting the most powerful military state in the world. The evolution of the Shahed is simply colossal — from what it was at the beginning to what we see today. They understood we had no counter to jet ones, except for SAM missiles, of which we have few. They scaled up production and began systematically hitting us while they have that window of opportunity.
While we search for solutions at all levels on how to shoot down jet Shaheds, they will hit daily, because it reaches where they need it to.
Why we didn’t understand this six months ago and actively search for a counter to jet Shaheds is a question for us. And the fact that Russia acts correctly from a military point of view should be said aloud and understood—how hard it is for our guys and girls to fight today.
A soldier of the 116 mechanized brigade prepares a P1-Sun to intercept Shaheds and other strike or reconnaissance drones in the north of Kharkiv region, 20 May 2026 year
Regarding countering jets — Defense Minister Yevheny Khmara said there are four potential interceptors. Do you cooperate with the Ministry of Defense in this direction? Do you know what those systems are?
Just before our conversation there was a meeting at the Ministry of Defense about this. On the horizon there is definitely an opportunity to improve the situation. There are systems; it just takes a little more time for them to work.
But right now it’s the same problem we had six months ago. There’s a Shahed, a certain evolution of it, and we catch up to that evolution. Then the Shahed takes another step forward, we catch up again. For now we don’t have a solution that will leapfrog the Shahed and stay ahead. So the opponent would have to catch up to us.
As it looks now, we are constantly chasing. And that’s our biggest problem. We don’t have a systemic big solution. Geran-5 is already being tested to some extent. That will be our next challenge. It again adds speed.
So will these modified interceptor drones be ineffective against it again in a couple of months?
If we stop at the achieved goal.
Currently there are two branches in this direction: interceptor drones and small rockets.
In our view, a constant race of jet Shahed versus jet interceptor is a very difficult story. A small-range rocket with an autonomous seeker would greatly improve the situation. And that would be exactly how we would leapfrog the Shahed in its development. But it needs to be done. And it’s not easy.
Crew prepares to launch a Merops drone interceptor
You also had a project for automated turrets. What’s the situation with them?
If we talk about air defense at all, each link — MANPADS, SAMs, electronic warfare, interceptors — is already a systemic part of air defense. Inseparable.
Regarding robotic turrets — that’s only the beginning. There are certain aspects that need fine-tuning and work. But they exist and work. In some places well, in others not so much.
Over time, I think this will also become an integral system of air defense. Overall the system is good. They should be installed on the last line of defense, when other means have already been expended.
What determines why they work well in some places and not in others?
Terrain, settings, city versus non-city, how the Shahed came in, its angle, the settings. Simply put — it has automatic acquisition. A large number of birds could fly through at the same moment and that also reacts to heat. Many factors to weigh.
Feedback and development of the defense industry complex
How is feedback arranged from crews to the manufacturer at the fund?
Most manufacturers with well-built operational capability have support hotlines 24/7. That’s one of the key criteria for manufacturers.
Sometimes we get feedback from the military that the manufacturer refuses to fix a problem. Then we talk to the manufacturer and warn them we won’t buy an unfixed system. What’s the point if, say, the manufacturer won’t fit a cable into a metal conduit so it works in wet conditions and a fox won’t chew it through.
But in most manufacturers support works well. It’s an absolutely market story.
Have there been cases when the fund severed cooperation with a manufacturer?
Mostly it was when the manufacturer stopped developing or kept prices too high. For example, we looked for deep-strike systems at the end of 2022 year. The first systems cost around 4 million UAH.
A year later, in October 2023, we ran a drive again and bought another system that cost 1 million 750 thousand UAH with the same specs, range, and warhead count. And those manufacturers continued selling theirs for 4 million UAH.
The Fund buys 88,3% of systems from Ukrainian manufacturers. It’s also important for us to have dialogue with manufacturers so improvements happen and funds stay inside the country.
As for manufacturers who, in your words, stopped developing: how common is that? What does it mean?
It’s hard to say what happened inside the team. Maybe the guys were simply mobilized from production and R&D and now work in a unit. Circumstances differ. Or, unfortunately, the enterprise was destroyed. It also depends on the size of production.
Manufacturers are one of Russia’s priority targets. So Ukrainian miltech companies today should be praised, supported, and helped. With the volume of work they do, they find strength, means, and financing to improve, find solutions, and operate under such conditions.
Andriy Shuvalov with the Darts drone
You, by the way, as a fund observed this whole evolution of Ukrainian production. How would you describe it? Is it a more stable story from what you see?
I mostly see good things. Live competition helps get a good price. Second — scaling of businesses, because Ukrainian business before and during the big war faces certain difficulties: energy, logistics, and so on. These are jobs, tax payments.
So it’s actually good that many military manufacturers are appearing who become a serious business model to later work on exporting their products abroad.
Are new companies appearing? Or is there some decline because it’s hard to compete?
I’d say they definitely are appearing. If we talk, for example, about NRK. We started working with NRK in August 2023. Then we bought the first five units and delivered them to 5 assault. Today with WOG we are doing the third iteration of the robot squad and we have a choice under 90 manufacturers. We started with ten. And manufacturers do appear.
The same with interceptors. The same with FPV drones and communications. Himera, for instance, is a good Ukrainian communications provider that continues to develop. So I’d say we are only moving upward in that regard.
About the fund and donations
How has the fund’s ecosystem changed over these five years?
Actually we have five key areas of work: military, humanitarian, Serhiy Prytula Fund training center, the American fund, and civilian readiness centers that help civilians live during the war and acquire certain skills.
And that ecosystem is changing. If you take 2022 year, that was quick procurements, putting out fires where they appeared. 2022 year we started with three people in the fund. Today we are about 140.
From 2022 to 2026 — it’s an organization and institution with trained people, proper processes, audited, with regulations and internal security work. And in that time 13 billion collected.
The fund’s delivery of arms to brigades
The American fund is already two years old, raised 10 million dollars, passed two successful audits, including one that only 0,1% of American funds passed.
The training center, where they teach to operate interceptors, graduated over 600 people in a year. Civil readiness centers are 87 working hubs across the country and over 90 thousand trained people. The humanitarian fund built bomb shelters for children, demined thousands of square meters, delivered equipment. It’s also constant procurement and delivery of medical equipment, etc.
How are donations overall right now?
I want to praise Ukrainians, because by transaction patterns you can clearly see people have a corresponding line in their financial budget. When the salary arrives you see a certain number of transactions. We see monthly that the number of transactions is not falling.
The average donation, yes, is falling. Because people are economically strained.
The main part of the fund’s income is businesses. But Ukrainian business is also suffering from the destruction Russia inflicts. Because the Russians understand perfectly: we fight while our economy works.
And is the trend from previous years — that after a big strike photos spread on social networks and donations increase — preserved?
That’s emotional donation. Today that phenomenon is absent in most cases. But I repeat, there is already systematic support that can be tracked.
What does the front need in technologies today?
We can make a technology, a beautiful and very effective system in simulators, on a computer, in a presentation. But people operate all of them. And not just people, trained people. So we need people and quality training to work with the systems.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "У нас поки немає рішення що перестрибне шахед. Розмова з директором Фонду Притули про пошук засобів проти реактивних дронів". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: LB.ua.
