Ukroboronprom to produce combat drones together with private companies

She said during a round-table meeting with representatives of the Defense Ministry, the League of Defense Companies and the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, the press service of the concern.

"We are open to cooperation with the private sector on new developments. We are working to bring together market needs and the capabilities of our design offices so as to really create, on the one hand, the latest models that would be interesting in the market and, on the other hand, directly meet the needs of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and the General Staff. Therefore, we decided to start with such a promising area as drones, and brought together at one table the key players in the Ukrainian UAV market and our main customers - the security and defense forces of Ukraine - to identify common interests and expectations," Vasylieva said.

She added that several potential models of cooperation with the private sector had already been developed and discussions on and the search for new investment and financial models continued. Next week, these business models of cooperation are to be discussed at the Economy Ministry.

According to the report, during the meeting, representatives of private UAV producing companies unanimously supported the idea of cooperation with Ukroboronprom and expressed their expectations from such cooperation. The main expectations of the private sector concern overall project management for bringing the final product through all complex bureaucratic processes of the armament system, as well as the joint development of UAVs, the creation of their combat part and preparations for mass production, which involves significant costs. Representatives of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in turn, said the key reason for not accepting already manufactured UAVs was the lack of their trials in real combat in training areas.

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