Ukraine Plans To Produce One Million FPV Drones In 2024

Ukraine is discovering that drones may be more effective than artillery ammunition as their supplies of that resource dwindle because the drones are inexpensive to produce and extremely accurate.

The production goal seems achievable. JL 

Thomas Newdick reports in The Drive:

Kyiv says it plans to manufacture around a million first-person view (FPV) drones next year, as part of expanding efforts to build uncrewed aircraft of different types. Ukraine also plans to build more than 11,000 medium- and long-range attack drones next year. It’s planned to build at least 1,000 drones with a range of more than 1,000km (620 miles). Used for reconnaissance and attack, the FPV drone has had a significant impact on the battlefield. “All production facilities are ready, and contracting for 2024 begins.”

Kyiv says it plans to manufacture around a million first-person view (FPV) drones next year, as part of expanding efforts to build uncrewed aircraft of different types. Used for reconnaissance and attack, the FPV drone is a weapon that has had a significant impact on the battlefield, as well as producing some of the most dramatic video footage of the war so far. However, there are real questions about whether such an output is even possible.

Ukraine also plans to build more than 11,000 medium- and long-range attack drones next year, Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister for strategic industries said, according to a Reuters report.

“All production facilities are ready, and contracting for 2024 begins,” Kamyshin said on the Telegram messaging app.

Among the long-range attack drones, it’s planned to build at least 1,000 drones with a range of more than 1,000km (620 miles), Kamyshin added.

As well as the undoubted effectiveness of FPV drones on the battlefield, and their relatively low procurement cost, the move has very likely also been driven by Russia’s increasing armory of the same kinds of drones. While Ukraine pioneered the use of these adapted civilian-type drones, Russia is now considered to operate more of them and the gap is increasing.

 

Ramping up production of such drones in Ukraine also has an economic imperative, helping to boost local industry. This is in addition to providing greater autonomy from Western sources of military materiel amid questions about the continued flow of weapons and funds to Kyiv.

Again, however, the viability of Ukraine producing such huge numbers of drones, even fairly low-tech ones, very much remains to be seen. Still, even the goal shows how important FPV drone supremacy on the battlefield is becoming.