An American base in Saudi Arabia has received a Ukrainian anti-drone system
Ukrainian technology at Prince Sultan Air Base
In recent weeks, the US military has deployed Ukrainian anti-drone technology at a key US airbase in Saudi Arabia. This was reported to Reuters by five people familiar with the situation. The US is seeking to mitigate the impact of attacks that have destroyed aircraft and buildings and killed at least one serviceman.
This involves the deployment of the Ukrainian Sky Map command and control platform at Prince Sultan Air Base. This had not been previously reported. The report notes that this demonstrates Ukraine’s significant progress in the field of drones and anti-drone technologies, which have been tested in the context of a four-year war with Russia.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian military officials have arrived at the base to train US military personnel in the use of Sky Map. Ukrainian forces make extensive use of this system to detect threats from drones, particularly the Iranian-designed Shahed, as well as to launch counterattacks using interceptor drones.
Against the backdrop of the active use of cheap, mass-produced drones in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Pentagon has increased investment in anti-drone technology. At the same time, the use of Ukrainian technology at Prince Sultan Air Base, located approximately 400 miles, or 640 kilometres, from Iran and which has been subjected to waves of drone and missile attacks since the start of the war, highlights the vulnerability of the US air and missile defence system, analysts say.
Timothy Walton, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said: “There have long been gaps in US air and missile defence coverage around the world. This was well understood. However, it has not been rectified.”
Following Donald Trump’s statements
This comes a month after President Donald Trump publicly rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to help combat Iranian drone strikes.
On 6 March, Donald Trump told Fox News: “We don’t need their help with drone defence.”
The White House and the Pentagon referred questions to US Central Command, which is responsible for Prince Sultan Air Base. They declined to comment.
The Ukrainian company Sky Fortress, which owns Sky Map, also declined to comment. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Last month, the Pentagon’s counter-drone unit announced that it had allocated $350 million to bolster defences against drones as part of Operation Epic Fury. A spokesperson for the unit, Adam Sher, stated that this involved providing a range of new technologies, including sensors, cameras and interceptors.
“There is no single, universal tool that will stop every drone threat,” said Adam Sher.
How Sky Map works
According to three people familiar with the situation, Sky Map has become one of the main command and control platforms used by the Ukrainian military. Such platforms typically consist of a dashboard with maps and video feeds, combining data from radars and sensors to detect threats.
Sky Fortress, the company behind Sky Map, was founded in 2022 by Ukrainian engineers with links to the military. According to a person familiar with the company’s operations, they have deployed over 10,000 acoustic sensors across Ukraine to detect Russian drone attacks.
The company, which received funding from Brave1, the Ukrainian military’s innovation unit, developed Sky Map as a software platform to coordinate counterattacks against drone threats.
Sky Map is one of a number of new anti-drone technologies deployed at Prince Sultan Air Base during the war. According to three people familiar with the situation, the base also used Merops interceptors, a drone developed by US-based Project Eagle, which is backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
The same sources reported that difficulties arose during the early stages of testing the new systems. Earlier this month, during a test at Prince Sultan Air Base, one of the Merops interceptor drones lost control and crashed into a toilet block on the base.
A spokesperson for Eric Schmidt declined to comment.
Waves of attacks on the base and existing defence systems
In the weeks following the start of the war, Prince Sultan Air Base came under waves of Shahed drone attacks and missile strikes. During an attack on 27 March, one of the US Air Force’s E-3 AWACS early warning aircraft was destroyed, whilst several KC-135 refuelling aircraft were damaged in another strike.
According to CNN, in one instance, a tent was destroyed which is believed to have housed the radar system supporting the THAAD battery used for the base’s missile defence.
Among the technologies the base used to defend against missile and drone strikes is the Forward Area Air Defense (FAAD) command and control platform, developed by Northrop Grumman. This was reported to Reuters by three sources. This system, first deployed by the US Army in the 1990s, provides tracking data to counter incoming threats, ranging from mortar and rocket fire to drones.
To counter short-range drone attacks, the base has primarily used RTX-manufactured Coyote interceptors. This was reported by two sources. These winged drones, for which the company signed a $5 billion contract with the US Army in September, can be used as single-use strike drones carrying warheads or equipped with a microwave system to disable the electronics of enemy drones.
A Northrop Grumman spokesperson stated that the FAAD system “is consistently reliable in the theatre of operations today, and we are confident in the competitive advantage FAAD provides to the military”.
RTX spokesperson Chris Johnson said that the Coyote interceptor “has demonstrated high effectiveness, destroying hundreds of aerial threats during combat operations”.
