Ukrainian army gets first long-awaited systems with APKWS missiles to target Russian drones

The Ukrainian military is already using the American Vampire system from L3Harris Technologies against Russian drones, Defense Express reports, citing Bloomberg and the Pentagon's Office of Acquisition and Support.

As noted, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are already operating the first four Vampire systems out of 14 to be delivered under the contract, according to Bloomberg.

It is noted that Ukraine received the first four systems "in the middle of the year", so it is likely that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been using Vampire systems to shoot down Russian drones for several months.

The remaining 10 systems are to be delivered to Ukraine by the end of this year, while the Pentagon refused to comment on any other details regarding the delivery schedule for the Vampire systems.

The Vampire anti-UAV systems can be called long-awaited, as the transfer of these systems was officially announced a year ago, on 24 August, as part of a large-scale $3 billion US defense aid package - the system was allocated under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI): this involves the manufacture of weapons from scratch, so it was quite obvious that these systems would not be delivered to Ukraine quickly.

At the same time, L3Harris received the contract for the production of these systems for Ukraine in early January 2023, four months after the announcement of the transfer of Vampire systems to Ukraine. It was noted that Ukraine was to receive the first systems in the middle of this year, meaning that the company is currently keeping up the pace of deliveries set at the beginning of the year.

L3Harris' Vampire drone countermeasures system is the latest development that was tested in the summer of 2022. It is a modular, portable system that can be installed on various vehicles, such as ordinary pick-up trucks.

Vampire uses a launcher for four 70mm APKWS guided missiles or other laser-guided missiles to hit targets. At the same time, the WESCAM MX-10 RSTA station is responsible for detecting and guiding the missiles to the target.