Ukraine appears to be beating Russia in the drone production race

• Drones, from combat systems to intelligence gathering systems, have dominated the battlefield in Ukraine.
• Ukraine and Russia have stepped up domestic drone production efforts to meet frontline needs.
• Kiev seems to be winning this race.

The staggering increase in drone warfare has prompted Ukraine and Russia to ramp up their domestic efforts to produce unmanned systems, setting off a high-stakes race to outdo the other.

At the moment, Kiev seems to be winning. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that the country’s defense companies can now produce 4 million drones annually.

Speaking at the second International Forum of Defense Industries in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine has already concluded a contract to produce 1.5 million unmanned systems. He did not specify what kind of drones these would be.

Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that Moscow plans to increase drone production tenfold to about 1.4 million a year, significantly less than its neighbor.

Drones have dominated the battlefield in Ukraine, with both sides using them for combat and intelligence-gathering purposes. Although more traditional military drones are active. First Person View (FPV) drones have become particularly important, proving to be cheap and effective ways to launch precision strikes on troops and vehicles.

Demand for more unmanned systems has pushed Ukraine and Russia to ramp up domestic drone production to keep up with battlefield demands — setting the stage for an unprecedented arms race.

Ukraine has set ambitious production targets, especially for the certainly valuable FPV drones, but officials say it will exceed them. Kiev has also built an arsenal of homemade naval drones, which it has used to wreak havoc on Moscow’s Black Sea fleet, and long-range attack drones, which it uses to strike key military and energy installations deep in Russia.

Ukraine’s increased drone production came amid broader efforts to expand its defense industrial base. Kiev went from almost no arms production before the war to producing new ammunition at lightning speed.

“While years ago, the Ukrainian defense industry looked sadly helpless, today it is an industry that is on the way to leadership, at least in Europe,” Zelenskyi said on Tuesday. “Today, these are industries that Ukraine can once again be rightfully proud of.”

Conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that has closely followed the war in Ukraine, said this week that Kiev’s continued efforts to increase its domestic military production will eventually allow the country to reduce its dependence on Western military support. .

But, the analysts wrote in an assessment on Wednesday, Kiev “still needs considerable Western assistance over the next several years to defend against Russian aggression and to liberate the strategically vital areas that Russian forces currently occupy.”

Western countries have given Ukraine more than $100 billion in military and security aid. The US is the largest arms supplier, providing nearly $60 billion in security assistance since the start of the war.