Ukraine is making anti-Shahed missiles that have to cost less than $20,000 per shot

Soldiers from the 148th Separate Artillery Zhytomyr Brigade of the Ukrainian Airborne Forces fire strike missiles from a BM-21 Grad MLRS.

Dmytro Smolienko/Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images Ukraine is funding air defense missiles with a hard cap of $20,000 per shot, Brave1's chief said.

That's about a sixth the cost of a Stinger missile, and still cheaper than an APWKS 70mm rocket.

It's one of Kyiv's responses to Russia's thousands-strong, inexpensive Shahed fleets.

Ukraine has been running a yearslong weapons program to develop cheap surface-to-air missiles that cost no more than $20,000 each, said Andrii Hrytseniuk, the head of its Brave1 startup incubator .

Several firms have been testing prototypes under this framework, and Kyiv is "preparing to put two of these companies into combat," Hrytseniuk said in a video interview published with Ukrainska Pravda on Thursday.

He expressed hope that a third would soon reach a similar stage.

Hrytseniuk said some of these manufacturers have managed to get costs down to $10,000 per missile, though the program has set a hard price cap of $20,000 per shot.

"This is significantly cheaper than the cost of a Shahed.

Even if you need two or three missiles, it is still several times cheaper than the cost of a Shahed," said Hrytseniuk of the limit.

Hrytseniuk said the program was launched by Brave1 as a competition between Ukrainian firms to "create the cheapest anti-aircraft missile systems possible." "Funding for missiles began in 2024, but making a missile takes even more time than making an interceptor drone," he added.

A price limit of $20,000 would make these Ukrainian missiles even cheaper than the AGR-Falco Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System , an American-made unguided 70mm rocket fitted with a laser guidance kit.

Costing about $30,000 to $35,000 each, these were traditionally air-to-ground rockets that have now been converted for air defense in Ukraine.

The cheapest US standard surface-to-air missile is the shoulder-mounted Stinger, which costs about $120,000 per missile.