The Ministry of Digital Transformation announced the results of the Drone Army for the past year 2023. There are currently about 200 companies operating in Ukraine that specialize in the production of drones and related products.
According to the data, since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukraine has been implementing a new approach to the production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The number of companies engaged in this field has increased to 200, with 67 UAV models already receiving contracts from the state, compared to 7 in 2022. Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov emphasized that last year companies produced about 100 drones every month, while now this number is tens of thousands.
The Ministry noted several key achievements for 2023:
- A historic budget of 40 billion hryvnias was obtained for the development of drones.
- Hundreds of thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles were contracted and transferred to the front.
- Almost 20,000 operators have been trained.
- The world's first shock companies were created.
- The process of admitting drones to operation has been simplified, which has led to an increase in the margin to 25% and the removal of additional permits.
- An online price monitoring system has been developed for each drone.
The government also set targets for 2024 by passing a regulation that would allow the state to purchase drones at the lowest prices through Prozoro. Ammunition production has also been simplified so that private companies can produce shells and even missiles.
Fedorov emphasized that the increase in UAV production was made possible thanks to transparent procurement, reduction of bureaucracy and courses for UAV operators.
Ukrainian forces use FPV drones, reusable attack copters, as well as Mavic and Autel for surveillance. The production of one million UAVs is planned for 2024, but Fedorov is sure that their number will exceed this figure.
