I haven’t heard a certain sound in a while that wakes me up at night. The one between a broken lawnmower and an old car that refuses to start. A Shahed — an Iranian drone Russia buys to hit Ukrainian cities. An Iranian drone that costs $30,000 and announces itself like a bad joke before it kills someone.

Now I’m reading that the Pentagon and Gulf states want to buy Ukrainian interceptors to shoot down those same drones. A few thousand dollars each versus $13.5 million per Patriot missile born in the US. The math writes itself.

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This episode was originally published on March 6, 2026.

Image: Shahed-136 debris after being shot down, Kyiv region, 2023. Source dduvs.com