Ukraine’s Drone Boom – and What It Might Teach the World

EXPERT INTERVIEWS – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this week that Ukraine plans to take an already-booming domestic drone industry and boost it to “the maximum”. Zelensky used his nightly address to the nation Monday to announce a ramp up in production of a “full range of drones” – including fiber-optic and long-range drone weapons – along with an expansion of “our domestic capacity to produce ground-based robotic systems.” Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said it had approved a new Ukrainian-made ground robotic system for military use.

The spike in high-quality drone production has been an almost unmitigated good-news story for Ukraine. In the space of three years, Ukraine has gone from reliance on other countries for its drone weapons to low-tech domestic production, to becoming a juggernaut that now manufactures drone weapons at a scale and quality that have drawn the attention, and even envy, of other countries in Europe and beyond.