Army Buys LOCUST X3 Lasers; Ukraine's Jet Killers | Sep 04, 2026

The West spent this week trying to change the arithmetic of drone defence rather than the equipment.

Marcus and Sam break down the US Army's first ever production contract for a high-energy laser weapon — a $464.8 million agreement with AeroVironment for the LOCUST X3 under the Enduring High Energy Laser program — and why a seven-hour airspace shutdown near El Paso International Airport in February explains the real constraint on homeland directed energy. Britain moved in the same week, publishing a £150 million tender for an autonomous vehicle-mounted counter-drone laser with integration onto an uncrewed ground vehicle listed as a planned objective, while Saab rushed Giraffe 1X radars to the RAF under an urgent operational demand. In Ukraine, Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara confirmed four interceptor designs have been field-tested against jet-powered Shaheds — LITAVR+ at over 400 km/h, P1-SUN Jetkiller at 370 — as Russia launched more than 2,500 jet drones in August straight from the factory, and adviser Serhii Beskrestnov traced their Belarus-hugging flight routes to LTE modems using Belarusian cellular towers. Plus TITAN targeting enters production with $127M to Palantir and $65M to Anduril, a DevDroid ground robot survives five FPV strikes to complete its mission, and the Pentagon's 90-day autonomous weapons directive deadline passes in silence.

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