Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov met with more than 100 Ukrainian developers and manufacturers of UAVs.

At the invitation of the Minister of Defense, the Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Digital Transformation, the Minister of Strategic Industries, and a representative of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine took part in the meeting. To meet the needs and requests of the Ukrainian army in the face of a full-scale invasion by the Russian aggressor, the Ministry of Defense aims to develop a market for drones with a wide range of applications.

The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, emphasized the importance of supporting the Ukrainian UAV market, particularly drones of a wide range of applications — air-land-water.

"This is about adjusting the artillery, and about inflicting damage on the enemy (strike drones), and about the delivery of military equipment, evacuation of the wounded, etc. Currently, the needs of the Defense Forces of Ukraine are measured by hundreds of thousands of UAVs of various modifications. The work on closing these needs continues, in particular, during the 8 months of the full-scale war, more UAVs were put into operation than in the last 5 years," Oleksiy Reznikov noted.

"I repeat, the independence of the Military Industry is one factor in the country's defense capability. And currently, one of the key directions of the Ministry of Defense is the development and support of the Ukrainian UAV market," the Minister of Defense added.

In turn, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Major General Volodymyr Koval, noted that the General Staff is following up on the issue of checking the performance characteristics declared by the manufacturer.

The Minister of Strategic Industry, Pavlo Ryabikin, emphasized the already available effective equipment leasing programs for UAV manufacturers from the Ministry of Strategic Industry.

In addition, the Ministry of Digital Affairs is currently working on additional financing in the field of UAV production, as noted by the Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov.

Normative and legal work is also ongoing within the framework of simplifying the development process of UAV production. Two projects of amendments to laws and five amendments to resolutions of the CMU have already been developed.

At the meeting, the need to create an Association that would represent the interests of manufacturers was actively discussed. The position of both the producers and the Minister coincided.

Also, the Minister of Defense handed over to a number of manufacturers certificates of registration of the official item, which means - admission to use by the military.