During an official visit to the United Kingdom, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, unveiled the new interceptor drone OCTOPUS, developed in collaboration with Ukrainian and British engineers.

According to the President's Office, the UK will begin production of these drones for testing in Ukraine. If trials are successful, production will be scaled up in both the UK and Ukrainian facilities. Bloomberg reports that the UK plans to manufacture around 2,000 units of OCTOPUS monthly for supply to Ukraine.

The OCTOPUS interceptor drone is the result of a joint defense project involving Ukrainian engineers, including Ukrspecsystems, with active support from British scientists and technical specialists. Its primary purpose is to combat hostile strike drones, particularly the Russian Shahed-136/Geran-2.

A key advantage of the OCTOPUS is its economic efficiency: it is estimated to cost less than 10% of the price of the targets it can destroy, making it a cost-effective alternative to expensive surface-to-air missiles.

The UK Ministry of Defence is also considering the OCTOPUS as a future foundation for a European "drone wall"—a permanent air defense system along NATO's eastern border aimed at countering Russian drones.

The OCTOPUS project marks the first joint defense initiative under a new agreement between Ukraine and the UK regarding military technology exchange. In the future, the countries also plan to launch joint production of glide bombs.