President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine's drone production has reached 10 million units per year. According to him, this volume is planned to be doubled with the support of partners. He announced this during a speech on Ukrainian Statehood Day, reports a correspondent of UNN.
I remember when I first publicly announced the state's plan - a million drones per year, and there was a lot of skepticism everywhere. Honestly, both from outside and inside, but now we can state - we are making ten million drones per year. Ten. And there will be twenty - we will do it with our partners. Once again we will prove the success of the defense-industrial complex - Ukrainian, partner, European
Let us add
A few years ago, drones were considered primarily as an auxiliary tool for reconnaissance and fire adjustment. Today, they have become one of the main means of conducting combat operations.
Senior Fellow at the American Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Kateryna Bondar in a study on the possibility of waging autonomous warfare concludes that Ukraine is gradually transitioning to a concept of conducting combat operations in which a significant part of tasks are performed by unmanned and autonomous systems, and the key goal is to minimize risks to personnel.
Ukraine has begun and continues to build a large-scale integrated system that combines FPV drones, strike drones of various types and classes, including "mid- and deep strikes," naval drones, and ground robotic systems.
The war in Ukraine has already become the "first major drone war" and is changing military doctrines. In this war, there is less and less room for traditional means of combat. For example, Deputy Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Pavlo Yelizarov directly stated that between a drone and a tank, he would choose a drone, because "it is more mobile, cheaper, does not depend on terrain, does not get stuck in mud, and requires fewer people to maintain."