BY JP LINDSLEY
Russia’s Iranian-designed Shahed drones have terrorized Ukraine’s cities for 3 years, including this morning in a major assault that has left much of Kyiv without power and water. Portable toilets have even been brought to the Parliament and presidential offices.
Russia’s flocks of cheap flying bombs drain air defences and murder people in their sleep. Now a startup in Lviv has unveiled Ukraine’s homemade answer: the KROOK-1.
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LVIV—According to @DefenderMediaUA, Lviv mil-tech firm First Parsec revealed KROOK-1 at the IT Arena tech conference last week (@itarenaua). The company says it’s Ukraine’s first ‘pulsejet kamikaze drone.’
The KROOK-1 is powered by a pulsejet—a simple jet engine that produces thrust in loud, rapid bursts. Cost: ~$15k.
It’s the start of a Ukrainian product response to Russia’s Shahed (“suicide martyr” in Persian), or Geran, drone—produced with engineers of the Iran regime.
Ukraine says ~8,060 Iran-designed drones had been launched by Russia through 2024. Since then, a major surge: Launches climbed to >1,000 per week in early-2025 and Russia began producing thousands per month.
Just last night, Russia sent more than 400 drones—plus missiles—throughout Ukraine.
As we saw in Poland last month, Shahed/Geran incursions can paralyse old-style defences. Polish/NATO jets shot down ~19 Russian drones using the very expensive missiles these cheap drones are designed to bleed.
That’s exactly what Ukraine’s new KROOK-1 is designed to flip. Fast (~400 km/h), cheap (~$15k), and built entirely in Ukraine—it can hit targets or fly as a decoy, forcing Russia to waste its own expensive interceptors.
Who’s behind it? First Parsec—a small aerospace startup from Lviv. They first built experimental rocket engines, then pivoted to drones. Ukraine’s defense cluster @BRAVE1ua has backed them with grants.
What’s next? First Parsec says KROOK-1 is already in internal trials. Ukraine’s building a new arsenal of democracy for the drone days ahead.
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