Ukraine details enormous Army of Drones production surge

Though initially launched as a military response to an existential threat, Ukraine’s Army of Drones initiative has also become a major industrial and business operation – the proof being the publication of its annual results not entirely disimilar to those of a Wall Street company.

To be sure, with the Army of Drones focusing on preserving the continued independence – even existence – of Ukraine, the figures released this week didn’t reflect the usual corporate obsessions with profits and dividend payments to shareholders. But it did highlight the project’s role in encouraging startups to enter the business of defending the nation, and nurturing their growth and proliferation.

 According to a report in the country’s Odessa Journal, the program has built up the cluster of just seven domestic UAV producers at work when it was launched in mid-2022 to over 200 today. 

More than 65 different models and kinds of drones are now being produced in Ukraine, the publication said. Measures used to fuel new UAV company launches and stimulate capacity continue accelerating, and now aim to produce over a million first-person view UAVs for defense uses in 2024.

Jumpstarting that kind of tech development and manufacturing amid the economic and social privations of a full-blown war is an impressive feat on its own. But Ukraine officials have also shown considerable creativity as part of that effort by simplifying formerly rigid administrative and oversight regulations; easing the creation of tech sector businesses; and attracting entrepreneurs from abroad with a tax-free tech development zone.

“In 1.5 years, we have adopted about 20 laws and regulatory acts that have changed the rules of the game and opened up markets for the development of innovations and technologies,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s vice prime minister for Innovation, Education, Science, and Technology Minister of Digital Transformation, and a major player in the Army of Drones initiative. “Already in 2023, 100 times more drones were produced and purchased than in 2022. This became possible due to changes in policy, increased funding, and companies’ capabilities to produce drones.”

Augmented production allowed Ukraine drones to strike over 14,000 enemy objectives between June 2023 to January 2024, he said, with training schemes enabling nearly 20,000 new UAV operators. 

Meanwhile, geeks associated with the Army of Drones have been active in other ways.

Yesterday, Ukraine’s military intelligence unit detailed how its hackers had seriously disrupted Russian UAV control systems. According to Euro Maiden press, the attack had focused on how “Russian forces use the software to reflash DJI brand drones for combat operations,” and create “friend-or-foe identification functionality.” 

In response to that reworking of the firmware, Ukraine army spooks hacked into enemy systems and “took (their) servers offline, causing all software to register as ‘foe’ and (deny) Russian access.”