KYIV, Ukraine 鈥� Whenever Anton has free time after work, he sits at his kitchen table and spends a few hours assembling drones that will be sent to the front line.
鈥淥ur army needs a lot of them,鈥� says Anton, a 35-year-old software developer, who declined to give his last name to avoid being targeted by Russia for his kitchen-top weapon-making. 鈥淧eople need to use factories in their own kitchens to assemble more and more drones.鈥�
Ukraine has dramatically amped up domestic production of both attack and reconnaissance drones since Russia鈥檚 full-scale invasion in 2022. This year, the Ukrainian government allocated $2 billion to produce at least 1 million first-person-view, or FPV, drones, which are equipped with cameras that transmit video to remote pilots. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy manufacturers earlier this month that the country had already surpassed that, contracting 1.5 million drones in the first three quarters of this year. He added that Ukraine is now capable of producing 4 million drones annually. The government, military, private companies and regular citizens are all involved.
鈥淲hen we started doing this, it was only three people. We were doing everything ourselves,鈥� said Serhiy Pirohov, who in the summer of 2022 co-founded the volunteer drone-assembly network Social Drone UA, though he now works independently. 鈥淚t was the goal from day zero to bring in more people and educate them so the goal is that everyone in the country should be able to assemble some kind of drone.鈥�
Ukraine even opened a new armed forces' branch dedicated to drone warfare, which the Ukrainian Defense Ministry . Vadym Sukharevsky, the commander of this branch, known officially as the Unmanned Systems Forces, it to the creation of an air force. Russia may have more drones, he magazine in July, 鈥渂ut qualitatively we are keeping them at parity.鈥� Sukharevsky told a recent military tech conference in Kyiv that when the branch is fully structured, 鈥渨e will be operating at sea, we will be operating on land and air ... plus we will be working on research and development.鈥�
Ihor Lutsenko, a former Ukrainian lawmaker now in the Ukrainian military, is also pushing for the creation of an all-female drone unit because 鈥渨e do not have enough soldiers at the front, and it鈥檚 time to include women,鈥� he told NPR.
Meanwhile, more than have opened in Ukraine since 2022, including Skyassist, which has its offices in a no-frills neighborhood of Kyiv. Co-founder Ihor Krynychko points to a reconnaissance drone.
鈥淭his is the prototype,鈥� he says. 鈥淟iterally made in the kitchen.鈥�
Skyassist produces hundreds of drones every month. Krynychko, a jolly engineer from Kharkiv, says Ukrainians are producing state-of-the-art drones because 鈥渨e paid for this knowledge in blood, with our soldiers鈥� lives.鈥�
鈥淚 remember being at a military exhibition in Poland last year and seeing beautiful-looking weapons by Lockheed Martin, Boeing and others and thinking 鈥榯hey鈥檙e beautiful but none of them would work in war for various reasons,鈥� 鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not because our engineers are necessarily smarter. We are at war and we know better than anyone else what鈥檚 needed at the front.鈥�
Ukraine鈥檚 navy has used sea drones to drive Russian warships out of the Black Sea. More recently, last month, the government unveiled the Palianytsia, which has been described as both a missile drone and a rocket drone which can be used against targets far into Russian territory. The Ukrainian military is domestically produced long-range attack drones to hit ammunition depots deep inside Russia.
The biggest barrier to expansion, though, is money. Ukraine鈥檚 government and private sector are producing more drones than the state can afford to acquire. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and former Strategic Industries Minister Oleksandr Kamyshin have urged other countries to help by buying Ukrainian drones.
Keeping up drone production helps Ukraine defend itself, says Krynychko, the co-founder of the drone-manufacturing company Skyassist.
鈥淲e have so many ideas for new drones,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e need time and resources to bring them to life.鈥�
Hanna Palamarenko and Polina Lytvynova contributed reporting from Kyiv.
Copyright 2024 NPR
