by Ukrainian aviator Roman Schemechko loved building model airplanes as a child. Russia’s war on the Ukraine gave him yet another unfortunate excuse to go back on that passion.
Prototypes of attack and surveillance drones of his company, Besomar (White Demon), fill a large room in a bare-bones office building in Lviv.
“Drones save lives,” says Mr. Schemechko, now the CEO. “The more drones we have, the more possibilities we have to hit the enemy.”
The drone industry is booming in Ukraine. The imagination of a new generation of Ukrainians has been captured by the beauty and logic of unmanned aerial vehicles, and inspired them to make drones. Many of them come from a business and engineering background, rather than a military background. Others are former video gamers who found their groove in military technology. The cost of war fills them all with the same sense of urgency.
Ukraine is a huge testing ground for drones from all over the world – the United States, Germany, Poland, and other partner countries. A number of new companies are landing on the technology; teams of engineers tinkering on prototypes, trying to clear the Ministry of Defense and NATO checklists of technical requirements, hoping to nail a military contract.
“They come to Ukraine to understand if a drone is a real combat drone,” says Maxim Sheremet, head of drone maker Dronarnia. “It’s not the same as killing in Iraq using powerful UAV drones,” he says. “In Ukraine, war was only on the front line in our minds. You need technology.”
A booming field
Drones became part of Ukraine’s defense capabilities against Russia in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. They provide many advantages in asymmetric warfare, with low cost and reduced risk to military personnel at the top of the list. They can be used for surveillance, reconnaissance, and precision strikes without the investment of manned aircraft. Even the most expensive model is several orders of magnitude cheaper than an F-16, and relatively basic ones can carry enough explosives to build a tank.
“Drones can be more effective in surveillance than a human pilot on the plane,” says Mr. Schemechko. “You can fly safely and never fear for your life. … One person can produce many drones that can be used to drop bombs or spy on the enemy. In contrast, it requires a lot of time to train a pilot. You need two to three months to produce a pilot with a reasonable level of knowledge and skill.”
Drones – unlike pilots – are also easier to replace. “When a drone is destroyed and lost, a drone pilot can build a new one and keep going.”
The intensification of drone warfare between Russia and Ukraine is forcing both sides to refine the full spectrum of related technologies and combat strategies.
In a cavernous room in Kyiv that echoes as small drones fly and crash into safety nets, one group of would-be operators is learning such techniques.
Kyrylo, a square-jawed athletic man sporting virtual reality goggles, manipulates a remote control connected to a first-person view (FPV) drone. He is training to pilot through the camera perspective on board the drone.
“There are a lot of people in the infantry who want to transfer to the drone operator units because they think it’s easier or they’re afraid of shrapnel,” says Kyrylo, who was taking a break from his frontline job. Donetsk region to participate in a drone flight course in Kyiv. “They don’t realize that this job and this job is very dangerous. Drone operators are a very valuable target to the enemy.”
The room is full of men and women gathered around cots filled with padded landing mats. Thousands of them sit in classroom-like rows, their faces illuminated by screens, eyes glued to the simulated obstacle course in front of them, hands tapping on remote controls as they pretend to navigate FPV drones.
In 2014, Ukraine had only a handful of drone pilot schools. Now there are over 30 who are part of the Army of Drones project of the digital ministry. “Ukraine now has thousands more drone pilots than before the invasion,” says Andrii, a drone flight instructor at the independent Boryviter Military School.
“Ukraine and Russia are like racing horses,” he says. “They’re going nose to nose. There are times when we see that the Russians are stealing technologies from us. In other cases, we can be behind them. In the field of FPV, we are equal. In terms of quantity, knowing how resourceful Russia is, we can be behind if we don’t increase our own production.”
An urgent need
Mr. Sheremet has been working for military technology companies since 2012. He founded Dronarnia with the help of students who were passionate about making FPV drones, one month after Russia invaded Ukraine. Now the students sit in assembly lines producing all kinds of unmanned aircraft.
But there are less than two dozen mass producers in the country. Many say that current production capacity meets only about 3% of current military needs. Among those looking to scale up quickly is Oleksandr Yakovenko, CEO of TAF Drones.
The company already has four factories spread across Ukraine – despite a sabotage attack that destroyed $300,000 worth of equipment in July. Most of their supplies (90%) come from China or Taiwan. The rest comes from suppliers in Europe and the U.S. “We have to create products that are cheaper than the targets,” he says. “Otherwise, we will not win because our enemy has more resources than our country.”
Near Kyiv, Yurii Dombrovskyi and his team are hard at work testing a drone model at an airfield. After spending a long time tinkering with radio systems, the prototype launches towards the sun and successfully loops around the field. It takes time to get all the details right: size, speed, weight, height, range, payload capacity, and, most importantly, the ability to bypass Russian jamming systems.
“We need hundreds of thousands of such products – for yesterday,” says Mr Dombrovskyi. “We don’t have time for testing and standardization. We are in the heat of the war. We have no choice.”
Most drone producers depend on China for most of their parts. They say they want more guidance and supplies from Western allies. “We need US solutions, technologies and advice,” says Mr Dombrovskyi. “We need other supply options than China because China is not such a friendly country, frankly.”
Ukrainian drone producers usually aspire to military contracts with the Ministry of Defense. Many of them have an eye on the international market or are already active on it. They understand that drones are not only necessary for victory in Ukraine but that they are also the weapon of the future.
“Three or four years ago, no one would have thought that drones would play such a big role in everyday warfare,” says Yuri Momot, deputy general of Piranha-Tech, a company developing jamming systems to take down Russian drones. “War itself is a great stimulus to progress.”
Oleksandr Naselenko contributed to reporting for this story.
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