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Lviv, Ukraine: Special – The same Iranian-designed martyr drones that rain down on Lviv, Ukraine, almost every night, are now being hunted with weapons made just a few miles away – inside hidden factories where former students and office workers assemble kamikaze drones and interceptor systems around the clock.
What began as an improvised wartime effort has evolved into one of the world’s fastest-growing military drone industries – a Ukrainian official says Kiev now leads NATO in battlefield innovation and can offer hard-won lessons for the US and Israel as they confront the same Iranian drone technology in the Gulf.
“Drone technology has completely changed the situation on the frontline,” Lviv Mayor Andrey Sadovy told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview, “Maybe in six months, maybe in a year, we will have the technology to take down 1,000 drones in an instant.
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Ukraine-made drones were displayed at a military technology exhibition at an undisclosed location in western Ukraine. (Efrat Letcher/Fox News Digital.)
“If there would be deeper cooperation between Ukraine, the United States, Israel and Europe, we would prepare special tools for our victory,” he said.
“We are three or four steps ahead of other countries…This is a new kind of war,” Dmytro, CEO of a Ukrainian drone maker that produces about 1,000 drones per week, told Fox News Digital. “This is a war of IT technology.”
Inexpensive drones now allow small battlefield units to identify and destroy tanks, armored vehicles, and even sophisticated air defense systems that once required expensive missiles or fighter aircraft.
This change is visible throughout western Ukraine, where defense technology centres, secret workshops and testing facilities now operate, while air raid sirens in cities regularly disrupt daily life.
The drone components and battlefield systems were assembled at a Ukrainian manufacturing facility at an undisclosed location in western Ukraine. (Efret Lacher/Fox News Digital)
Inside the workshop that Fox News Digital visited, workers moved quickly between tables filled with propellers, fiber-optic cables and other classified drone components. Activists say they no longer see themselves as civilians temporarily helping the war effort. Many now consider drone production essential to Ukraine’s survival.
Vitaly, one of the technicians who assembles kamikaze drones for the front lines, said he now makes hundreds of drone components a day. “The targets will be vehicles, tanks, soldiers, positions,” he told Fox News Digital.
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A soldier launches an RQ-35 Heidrun drone, used for reconnaissance and spotting artillery fire, in Zaporizhia, Ukraine, on February 22, 2026. (Dmytro Smolyanenko/Ukrainform/Nurfoto via Getty Images)
“I’m honored because I’m helping our country find peace very quickly,” Vitali said, referring to President Donald Trump’s statement on ending the war. He said, “Peace through strength – that’s our inspiration. But it’s definitely mostly on us.”
Ukraine’s domestic drone production has grown at an astonishing pace. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Serhiy Boyev said earlier this year that the country aims to produce more than seven million drones in 2026, up from about four million in 2025.
From AI-assisted battlefield systems to Russian electronic warfare-resistant drones, Ukraine’s wartime innovations are exposing weaknesses in traditional Western military doctrine.
At another defense technology center in Lviv, rows of interceptor drones, unmanned ground vehicles and remotely operated weapons systems fill a showroom showcasing Ukraine’s rapidly evolving battlefield ecosystem.
“There are about 250 tech companies in our system,” said Volodymyr Chernyuk, co-founder of the Ukrainian defense technology cluster Iron.
Some drones are designed for reconnaissance. For other evacuation, logistics or direct attack missions. A heavy-duty drone used for night-time attacks has earned Russian soldiers the nickname “Baba Yaga”, which Cherniuk translates as “boogeyman”.
Another interceptor drone is specifically designed to hunt down the Iranian-made Martyr drones that Russia uses in night attacks on Ukrainian cities.
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“They can go 300 kilometers per hour,” Cherniuk said. “One hundred grams is enough to shut up a martyr.”
“We have a lot of Americans, Canadians, Europeans who come here and want our data, feedback from the front lines,” Dmytro said.
The remains of the Russian-made, Iran-designed Shahid-136 drone, known as Geran-2 in Russia, are displayed along with other recovered drones, glide bombs, missiles and rockets in Kharkiv on July 30, 2025. (Scott Peterson/Getty Images)
As Fox News Digital reported from Lviv, airstrike sirens echoed repeatedly across the city, a reminder that western Ukraine remains within reach of Russia’s expanded drone campaign.
Russia has dramatically increased its airstrikes in recent weeks following the end of a brief ceasefire, and launched massive drone attacks targeting cities and logistics centers across Ukraine, including in areas of NATO territory close to the Polish border.
Ukraine has also increasingly demonstrated its ability to strike deep into Russian territory with long-range drone strikes targeting areas around Moscow and Russian energy infrastructure.
But the evolving drone war has quickly spread beyond the borders of Ukraine and Russia into NATO territory.
In recent weeks, drones associated with Ukrainian long-range strike operations entered the airspace of Baltic alliance members including Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, triggering a political fallout and rekindling concerns about regional air defense. Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds resigned after a drone crashed near fuel storage facilities close to the Russian border.
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A Russian plant assembling Iranian Shaheed drones was targeted in a massive Ukrainian drone attack on Tatarstan (East2West)
Ukrainian and Baltic officials blamed Russian electronic warfare and GPS spoofing for diverting the drones, arguing that Moscow is using electronic warfare not only defensively, but also to create instability and political pressure inside NATO countries.
The incidents highlight how the same Iranian-designed Shaheed drones Russia uses against Ukrainian cities at night – and similar long-range drone technologies increasingly used by both sides – are reshaping modern warfare beyond the battlefield.
