The growing speed of Russia’s newer drones is forcing Ukrainian forces to use combat aircraft in attempts to intercept them. According to The Washington Post, some Russian UAV models are now fast enough to create serious difficulties for conventional interception methods.

The newspaper reports that the Geran-4 and Geran-5 can reach speeds of around 250 miles per hour, or roughly 400 kilometers per hour. In some cases, Ukrainian forces have had to scramble fighter jets to try to stop incoming drones.

The Economist previously reported that Ukraine still lacks effective interception systems capable of dealing with Russia’s newer jet-powered UAVs. The magazine said these drones continue to strike important targets while existing countermeasures have not fully solved the problem.

On August 31, Vladimir Zelensky’s adviser Sergey Beskrestnov also pointed to a sharp increase in the use of jet-powered drones. He said Russia launched more than 2,500 jet-powered Geran UAVs at targets in Ukrainian territory during August, compared with around 1,500 in July.

Beskrestnov said the drones were being sent into service almost immediately after production. He had also acknowledged earlier that Ukrainian manufacturers had yet to develop effective jet-powered interceptor drones capable of countering Russian Geran and Banderol UAVs.

The rising speed of these systems has become one of the main difficulties. According to Beskrestnov, the Geran-3 could reach 300–330 km/h, while the Geran-4 is capable of 450–550 km/h. He said an interceptor would need to reach about 600 km/h to engage such targets reliably.

Ukraine does not currently have interceptor drones with such capabilities, forcing its forces to use missiles against Russian jet-powered UAVs instead.