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Russian oil refineries, port operators and warehouse owners are increasingly turning to interceptor drones to defend their facilities against Ukrainian attacks, reflecting a broader push by Russia’s private sector to develop its own layer of counter-drone protection.
Mikhail Filippov, founder and CEO of the Archangel drone pilot training and unmanned technologies development project, told TASS on September 23 that orders for interceptor drone protection systems were coming primarily from oil companies, port operators and warehouse owners.
“Orders for the development of protection systems using interceptor drones are currently coming primarily from oil sector enterprises, port operators, and warehouse owners — facilities that the enemy is actively targeting,” Filippov said.
He said some of the facilities being targeted are not formally classified as critical infrastructure, leaving their owners to cover the additional cost of protection themselves.
According to Filippov, Archangel has also worked with regional authorities to help bring some warehouses into protected categories because damage to such facilities can disrupt deliveries and cause losses for manufacturers.
The growing use of interceptor drones is part of a much broader expansion of commercial counter-drone spending in Russia.
Data cited by the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti showed that publicly recorded purchases of drone-defense equipment by commercial companies reached 441.3 million rubles ($5.3 million) in the first half of 2026, 6.6 times the level recorded during the same period a year earlier.
The newspaper said the figures were based on procurement data from the Tenderplan system and that the trend was particularly pronounced after an order from President Vladimir Putin in late May to develop measures for protecting businesses from drone attacks.
The equipment being purchased extends well beyond interceptor drones. Russian companies have been buying drone detectors and direction-finding systems, electronic-warfare equipment, warning systems and anti-drone guns, while businesses have also installed nets, canopies and other physical barriers around vulnerable facilities.
These measures allow companies to build local defenses around individual sites rather than relying exclusively on state air defense assets.
The Russian business community has also been pressing for an even more formal role in protecting industrial infrastructure.
Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, said in July that companies were discussing with authorities the creation of systems for early detection, warning and response to drone attacks and were prepared to invest in such technologies.
That process has increasingly involved larger industrial enterprises. First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said earlier this month that major Russian industrial and other large enterprises were being incorporated into a zonal and facility-based air defense system and would participate in protecting their own sites.
Rather than treating counter-drone defense solely as a government military responsibility, Russia’s private sector has opted to help address the threat head on, demonstrating a high level of resilience.
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