U.S. Deploys Ukrainian Acoustic Sensors, Interceptor Drones At Prince Sultan Air Base

Last month’s Iranian drone strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia appears to have inflicted a costly toll on U.S. forces in the region. The attack destroyed a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft and damaged multiple KC-135 refueling tankers, highlighting a major gap in U.S. air defenses against cheap attack drones. Nearly a month after the drone strike on Prince Sultan Air Base, and following multiple reports that Ukrainian drone forces had been shifted into the region, Reuters confirmed Wednesday morning that the U.S. has deployed Ukrainian counter-drone technology to defend against Iranian-developed Shahed drones. At the center of this new security effort to fortify the airspace above Prince Sultan Air Base against low-cost Iranian one-way attack drones is Sky Map, a Ukrainian command-and-control platform used to detect incoming drones. The coordinated response to Shaheds is the use of interceptor drones. “There have been longstanding gaps in U.S. air and missile defense coverage around the world,” said Timothy Walton, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute think tank. “This has been well understood. However, it hasn’t been addressed.” Ukrainian drone experts reportedly traveled to the base in recent weeks to train U.S. personnel on Sky […]