Today, about 200 companies in Ukraine are engaged in the production of drones. Some of them have already set up assembly-line production of the devices, Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology Development – Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov has announced.
“Today, there are about 200 drone manufacturing companies in Ukraine. New ones appear almost every month. We have a separate project called Brave1 that provides grants to start such companies, and venture capital funds are emerging to provide funding for such startups. Funding is also increasing from the state, from the Ministry of Defense and other bodies of the Defense Forces that purchase UAVs,” Fedorov said.
He noted that information about the opening of new production facilities was not available to the public, but assured that the capacity of domestic production in this area was growing. Some companies have already set up conveyor production of devices, the volume of which in some cases reaches up to 10,000 units.
“We are building new plants, and we see that production capacity is growing. We already have assembly-line production of thousands of units of such equipment, even tens of thousands in a certain category, but we cannot announce such things loudly. The frontline needs more drones. That is why we are constantly thinking about what else we need to do in terms of innovation, taxes, increased funding, and attracting partners to produce even more drones for the Defense Forces,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.
He added that, unlike Russia, drone production in Ukraine was at a slightly different level of development. While the Russians have been preparing for many years and investing in the development of this sector of the military-industrial complex, the market in Ukraine opened only last year.
“For example, today the leading position in one of the UAV categories is held by a company that did not exist last year. If we continue to work at this pace, we will not just catch up with Russia at this distance,” Fedorov said. (Ukrinform/Business World Magazine)
