Japan’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) has awarded a contract to Ukrainian defence tech start-up SkyFall for an unspecified number of interceptor drones, Japan’s Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters on 9 October.
While details of the deal have been sparse, Japanese media has speculated that the deal may involve the procurement of the P1-Sun JetKiller, a high-speed variant of SkyFall’s P1-Sun family of interceptors that is designed for countering jet-powered kamikaze drones.
The JetKiller has a top speed of 370 km/h, a maximum range of 30 km, and a service ceiling of 9,000 metres, according to the company.
SkyFall claims that the P1-Sun JetKiller has successfully intercepted Russia’s recently introduced high speed Geran-5 jet-powered suicide drones, according to the Ukranian military news provider Militarynyi.
Notably, the procurement was made merely 6 weeks after Japanese start-up Terra Drone announced that it had won a contract to provide Terra B1 interceptor drones to Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force.
In an interview with ADM, Terra Drone CEO Toru Tokushige said that the B1 is in the 300 km/h class – roughly matching the speed of the P1-Sun base model.
The procurement also comes after the growing challenge posed by high-speed jet-powered attack drones was directly discussed in a high level meeting between Japanese and Ukrainian officials in Kiev on 1 October , Japan’s former defence minister Itsunori Onodera, who attended the meeting, told The Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) on 2 October.
According to Onodera, who is also the current Chairman of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Policy Research Council, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy personally requested increased technological cooperation between the two nations to counter the threat posed by this type of drone.
Onodera also stated that Ukraine’s operational deployment of new technologies provided a welcomed source of intelligence for Japanese procurement agencies.
Several days after the event, Zelensky, during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, claimed that Russia has transferred jet-powered drone technology to North Korea – a country whose military buildup has aroused growing concern in Tokyo.
Since the release of Japan’s National Defense Strategy in 2022, Tokyo has placed growing emphasis on drawing from Ukraine’s prolific use of drones to dramatically expand its own unmanned systems capabilities, which is a core component of its agenda to develop a more asymmetric defence posture and adapt to “new ways of warfare.”
Aside from acquiring battle-tested equipment, Japan’s MoD is particularly interested in learning from Ukraine’s success in rapidly upgrading drones in response to front-line feedback within a two/three-week window, Koizumi told reporters on 9 October.
On 27 February, Koizumi announced the inauguration of the Fast-track Procurement model, which was in-part inspired by defence industry developments in Ukraine.
In July, the Defense Minister announced that an interceptor drone procurement would serve as a pilot for the program, with the winning bidders to move to the mass production stage within an unprecedented 3 months from the submission deadline.
Three of the four bidders that were invited to participate in demonstration trials had operational experience in Ukraine.
Connections between the two nations’ defence drone industries have also grown in recent months, with Terra Drone, which deployed its Terra A1 high mobility interceptor in the Ukraine theatre in April, later acquiring two Ukranian subsidiaries – Amazing Drones, and interceptor drone provider, WinnyLab.
The deal also continued a bumper year for SkyFall’s international operations, with the start-up signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a strategic partnership with Airbus Defense and Space in Germany in June, followed by sealing a partnership with Canadian company Calian Group in September to provide unmanned systems training to NATO countries and Canada.