Zelensky: Ukraine Capable of Producing up to 8M Drones Annually

The President called on NATO countries to invest in Ukrainian defense companies and create joint ventures to increase arms production and support Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelensky spoke about the capabilities of the Ukrainian defense industry during his speech at the NATO Summit in The Hague.

The production potential of the Ukrainian defense industry has exceeded $35 billion and already offers about 1,000 samples of defense products: from artillery and armored vehicles to drones of all types and missiles.

“However, only about 45% of our capacity is utilized. We can already produce about 8 million drones annually, but funding is far from these figures,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.

He noted that today Ukraine is open to various forms of cooperation in the defense sector, including “the exchange of Ukrainian competencies and technological achievements with those who help the most.”

“We must lead the arms race in the field of unmanned systems, both attack drones and interceptors, as well as traditional weapons,” he added.

It is worth noting that the announced capacity to produce 8 million drones is not fantastic. For example, in October last year, the President reported on the possibility of producing 4 million drones, of which 1.5 million units were contracted by the state at that time.

Most of the “million-dollar” production volumes are accounted for by FPV drones, which are used in large quantities on the front line and have long since partially replaced the niche of precision missile weapons and artillery.

Demand for FPVs is still growing, and so production is scaling up. In particular, Oleksiy Babenko, owner of the Ukrainian company Vyriy Drone, said that according to average estimates, the annual assembly of one million drones from off-the-shelf components requires a staff of 400 employees. Accordingly, the conditional production of 8 million drones of this type is not a difficult task if there are enough resources.

Also today, Militarnyi reported that the United Kingdom became one of the first countries to finance the licensed production of Ukrainian weapons at the facilities of British companies. The manufactured products will be used by the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

The agreement, which covers the next three years, provides funding for the British government to purchase a wide range of Ukrainian drones to be jointly manufactured in the country.

This will allow British defense companies to quickly design and manufacture state-of-the-art drones on a large scale.