- Ukraine’s President has appointed Colonel Pavlo “Lazar” Yelizarov as Deputy Commander of the Air Force
- His promotion comes with a new responsibility to construct a counter-uncrewed air system (C-UAS) shield, which will provide coverage across the war-torn country
- The system will be designed not to respond post factum, but to destroy UAS threats while they are still en route
Ukraine has resolved to pre-empt Russian drones with the construction of an anti-drone shield with coverage extending across the war-torn nation.
Last year, the Ministry of Defence determined that 100,000 Shahed drones and other drone types were used against Ukraine, damaging dozens of critical infrastructure facilities, hitting hundreds of residential buildings and causing casualties.
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Responding to this daily blitz, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the transformation of Ukraine’s existing short-range air defence (SHORAD) units. To this end, the country’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) described its new vision as “a system designed not to respond post factum, but to destroy threats while they are still en route”.
However, the government have not described how this will be achieved or what type of technology will be procured to enable the concept. But Ukraine’s Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov maintained that “we must change our approaches, structures, and work logic to ensure technologies deliver real results on the battlefield…”
Should this lower-tier interception shield operate successfully, then it would prove detrimental to existing Russian tactics since drones now account for 80% of casualties in the conflict.
Lazar’s mobile fires group
The man who has been tasked to deliver the shield – with coverage across more than 233,000 square miles – is Colonel Pavlo “Lazar” Yelizarov, whom Zelenskyy has appointed the new Deputy Air Force Commander.
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By GlobalDataUnder his leadership, the “Lazar’s Group” unit emerged as one of the most effective units in the Armed Forces.
The MoD claims that this mobile firing team alone destroyed enemy equipment valued at more than $13bn. It is said that one in every five destroyed Russian tanks is attributed to their work. In December alone, it destroyed 364 artillery systems and 12 multiple launch rocket systems.
Drone Shield: in practice
Ukraine is not the first to conceive such a concept: the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are working together to establish SHORAD coverage in their “Drone Wall”.
The cross-border system will be sourced from local defence industry, combining autonomous surveillance sensors, integrated drone countermeasure systems, multilayer sensor networks, interceptor drones and mobile C-UAS platforms.
This reporter was present in Tallinn in September 2025 when Estonia’s DefSecIntel Solutions signed a memorandum of understanding with Latvia’s Origin Robotics to integrate systems into the former’s EIRSHIELD long range detection and C-UAS platform.
The range of different sensors and effectors required means the SHOARD sector is growing. One C-UAS system for point defence is not enough; a plethora of disaggregated and moving units are needed for the total security Ukraine and the Baltic States are pursuing in their extended coverage.
