UNITED24 Media
Ukraine has tested a newly developed multi-caliber air defense system known as Shershen, according to comments shared with the defense outlet Militarnyi during the World Defense Show 2026 on February 13.
Serhii Honcharov, director of the National Association of Defense Industries of Ukraine, said the system’s core components have already been validated using five different missile types.
Testing has included legacy Soviet-era weapons, foreign-produced missiles, and emerging Ukrainian designs, reflecting a concept built around flexibility rather than dependence on a single supplier.
An official video released on February 12 by the association showed elements of the system, including a launcher and radar. A radar model displayed at the exhibition suggests the architecture allows for multiple sensor configurations rather than a fixed supplier solution.
“The radar can be adapted to the system according to the customer’s wishes. There is no strict requirement that it must be only Thales, or only HENSOLDT, or Teledyne, Girafe, or any other radar. Everything can be adapted, and the control system is very flexible and at least three times cheaper than global analogues,” Honcharov said.