Vice Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science, and Technology - Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, outlined the Defense Forces' priority tasks for drone manufacturers.
He announced this on Telegram.
"Met with 120+ drone manufacturers. There will be more UAVs," Fedorov noted.
He stated that in 2022, Ukraine practically created a drone market from scratch.
"Now, there are hundreds of companies in it. This is the result of consistent policy and opening up the market. An open market changes the rules of the game, and this is our conscious position to give everyone the opportunity to enter it and then create competition. This was the bet," Fedorov said.
Last year, the Vice Prime Minister emphasized, Ukrainian drone production was significantly scaled up: 67 models were codified, and 58 received state contracts.
In total, over 200 Ukrainian companies are operating in the market, dealing with UAVs or drone-related services and products, Fedorov reported.
"At the meeting with manufacturers a few days ago, I emphasized that in 2024, companies need to scale up - because we need more drones," the head of the Ministry of Digital Transformation noted.
According to him, "we, on our part, continue to change policies, adapt laws, and work on simplified contracting. From a key perspective, we now need to standardize the requirements and tactical-technical characteristics for drones. It is also important for manufacturers to understand the forecasting of contracts and the needs of the General Staff - we are working on that too."
Fedorov named the priority technologies for UAV development for the Ukrainian "Lancet," AI for automatic target acquisition, guided munitions, electronic warfare targeting and striking, anti-drone solutions, and more.
As the Vice Prime Minister emphasized, "these are the top tasks from the Defense Forces for manufacturers now. We are also actively working on the development of robotic platforms, munitions, and electronic warfare - almost every week a new unit is codified according to NATO standards."
He reminded that last year, the Brave1 cluster for the development of military technologies was launched, supporting innovation manufacturers by providing grants and assistance with deployment and codification. Fedorov announced plans to increase the grant size to $200,000 to allow inventors to create a high-quality prototype.
