In December, the Ukrainian defense industry produced approximately 50,000 FPV drones and plans to manufacture thousands of medium and long-range strike drones. Minister of Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamishin reported this information.
"Yesterday, during the year-end press conference, the President promised that Ukraine would produce a million drones next year. And this is only about FPV drones. Already in December, we are producing more than 50,000 FPV drones," Kamishin stated.
Based on the minister's words, it can be concluded that even at the current production rate, the Ukrainian industry will be able to produce 600,000 drones or even more next year.
Currently, apart from the production of drones themselves, the supply of reliable and safe industrial combat components remains a challenge.
Ukrainian military currently uses homemade munitions, although samples manufactured by the Ukrainian defense complex are beginning to appear on the front lines.
During the press conference, Zelensky noted that Ukrainian military brigades will receive domestically produced drones. However, it should be understood that this involves assembling products from ready-made components.
The majority of drone components are manufactured in China, including engines, microelectronics, and cameras. However, there are currently no issues with their supply.
In addition to 'small' unmanned aviation that targets enemy personnel and equipment on the front lines, the minister also reported the production of larger aerial vehicles for striking targets in the rear of Russia.
'In addition to FPV drones, we are already capable of producing more than 10,000 medium-range strike drones (hundreds of kilometers) next year, and over 1,000 drones with a range of over 1,000 km,' said Kamishin.
Recall that in November, Kamishin announced the production of dozens of drones per month, which in their characteristics are analogs of Iranian 'Shahed.'
'Starting with what is called the 'Ukrainian Shahed,' we do not mention the name of this product, but we have moved on to its serial production and are now producing dozens per month, continuing with many other positions that we used to produce very few of, and now we have decent figures,' Kamishin added.
By this term, it likely refers to a strike drone that, like its Iranian counterpart, can deliver about 50 kilograms of explosives over a distance of more than 1000 km
