Germany Completes Skynex Delivery to Ukraine to Counter Russian Drones and Missiles.

Germany has completed delivery of four Skynex short-range air defense systems to Ukraine, according to investor remarks from Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger on 18 November 2025. The deployment strengthens Ukraine’s ability to counter Shahed drones and cruise missiles around critical power infrastructure.

The German Aid to Ukraine monitoring project (GAU) disclosed on 18 November 2025 that Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger told investors at the company’s Capital Markets Day that all Skynex short-range air defense systems financed by the German government are now in Ukrainian service. Four complete systems, each with the maximum four “shooters” or guns, have been delivered and are deployed in western Ukraine to shield power plants and grid nodes from Russian Shahed-type loitering munitions and cruise missiles. The announcement quietly closes a procurement trail that began with two systems ordered in late 2022 and two more contracted in early 2024.
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Rheinmetall's Skynex uses 35 mm Revolver Gun Mk3 cannons with AHEAD airburst rounds to create a dense tungsten cloud that destroys drones and cruise missiles within a 4 km radius (Picture source: Rheinmetall).

Skynex is not a single vehicle but a networked architecture built around Rheinmetall’s Oerlikon Skymaster (also designated CN-1) battle management node, the X-TAR3D X-band tactical acquisition radar, and up to four Oerlikon Revolver Gun Mk3 35 mm effector turrets. In the Ukrainian configuration, all of these elements have been palletised on HX 8×8 swap-body trucks, turning what is often displayed as a static range demonstrator into a mobile, shoot-and-scoot gun battery. The X-TAR3D radar creates a 360-degree air picture out to roughly 50 kilometres, while the gun line forms a lethal 4 km engagement bubble around the defended site and can be cued by higher-level air-defense command posts.

At the heart of the system is the Revolver Gun Mk3, a remote-controlled 35×228 mm automatic cannon derived from the proven KDG family and fully integrated into an ISO 1D container-compatible turret. The gun offers an effective combat range of up to 4,000 m and engagement altitudes to about 3,500 m, with a nominal cyclic rate of 1,000 rounds per minute and a selectable rapid single-shot mode of 200 rounds per minute. Each turret holds 252 linkless rounds ready to fire and weighs just over five tonnes loaded, making it light enough to ride on standard military trucks without special engineering. The barrel length of 90 calibres and mean muzzle velocities of about 1,050 m/s for AHEAD and 1,175 m/s for full-calibre high-explosive rounds mean a target at 2 km can be reached in roughly two seconds, a key factor when engaging low-flying cruise missiles in the terminal phase.

Each Mk3 turret in Ukrainian service carries its own X-band tracking radar, electro-optical sensor head and ballistic computer, giving it the ability to operate as an autonomous “shooter” once a target track has been handed over from Skymaster or an external 3D radar. The integrated fire-control processor manages target designation, tracking, lead-angle calculation and burst programming without exposing a crew, who can sit several hundred metres away in a protected control shelter. This architecture allows multiple guns in a Skynex battery to prosecute different targets in parallel, or to mass fire from several barrels on a single high-priority threat such as a Kalibr-class cruise missile.

What turns this hardware into a dedicated drone killer is the 35 mm Advanced Hit Efficiency and Destruction (AHEAD) programmable airburst round. Each PMD062-type cartridge contains 152 cylindrical tungsten alloy subprojectiles weighing 3.3 g apiece, packed above a tiny ejection charge and coupled to an electronic time fuze. As the projectile passes the muzzle, an inductive programmer sets the burst time based on measured velocity, so the payload opens just in front of the target, throwing a cone of metal fragments across its flight path. The result is a higher kill probability against low-signature Shahed drones, quadcopters, FPV loitering munitions and even rockets or mortar bombs compared with classic high-explosive impact fuzes, while remaining far cheaper per intercept than any missile solution.

In Ukrainian hands, Skynex has been assigned primarily to Air Command “West” to cover power plants and transformer hubs that manage much of the country’s electricity flow from safer rear areas. GAU and Ukrainian Air Force footage show camouflaged Mk3 turrets dispersed around such sites, swinging rapidly through arcs of fire as they engage successive Shahed groups during night raids. In one August 21 attack on western Ukraine, Air Command West reported intercepting 42 attack drones and eleven cruise missiles; video released days later shows a Skynex gun locking onto a Shahed, firing a short burst, then immediately slewing to a second target as the first drone disappears in a cloud of debris.

Ukrainian analysts now argue that Skynex has moved beyond a niche role. Official briefing and notes indicate that the German system in Ukraine has proved capable of downing not only Shahed- and Geran-type drones, but also Kh-101 and Kalibr cruise missiles, confirming its utility against more demanding targets. In doctrinal terms, Skynex batteries sit underneath Patriot, IRIS-T SLM and NASAMS, taking over routine engagements inside the final four kilometres around high-value assets so that expensive missile stocks are reserved for ballistic and long-range threats. For Ukraine’s multi-layered air-defense network, this means a more rational division of labour: guns for drones and subsonic cruise missiles in the last seconds of flight, missiles for heavy and high-speed targets earlier in the trajectory.

Technically sophisticated systems stand or fall on sustainment, and here the 35 mm calibre has one advantage: Ukraine is already a major consumer of 35 mm ammunition for its Gepard self-propelled guns, with Germany and Rheinmetall under several contracts to deliver hundreds of thousands of rounds funded from Berlin’s Ukraine-support budget. Rheinmetall has also secured at least one large order for 35 mm AHEAD ammunition specifically for a European Skynex user widely believed to be Ukraine, and is expanding medium-calibre production lines in Hungary’s Várpalota plant and elsewhere. In practice, this industrial base means Kyiv can plan for sustained Skynex operations over several winters, rather than treating the guns as boutique assets with limited ammunition. For German policymakers, the programme is equally political: it showcases a cost-effective “drone wall” layer that fits neatly into Berlin’s European Sky Shield Initiative and broader push to rebuild European air defence.

Ukraine is no longer a solitary operator: Qatar fielded an early Skynex configuration with eight Mk3 guns and X-TAR3D radar for point defence of air bases and energy sites, giving the system its first export reference. Italy has since ordered up to four systems worth nearly €280 million for its army, with initial deliveries planned from 2026, while an unnamed European customer has contracted additional batteries and AHEAD stocks for 2025 deliveries. Combined with the Skyranger 35 turret now being prepared for Leopard 1 chassis for Ukraine, this indicates that Rheinmetall’s 35 mm gun-and-AHEAD ecosystem is becoming a de facto NATO standard for very short-range air defense.

For Ukraine, the completion of the four-system Skynex package fills a critical gap between missile-based systems and man-portable air-defence teams, delivering a dense, software-driven wall of tungsten that is optimised for the kind of Shahed swarms and mixed cruise-missile barrages Russia is expected to unleash again this winter. The combination of high technical sophistication, relatively low cost per shot and growing ammunition production gives Kyiv a rare asset in this war: a defensive weapon that can be fired often without bankrupting its supporters.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.