Ukraine could annually produce up to 10M drones, even without supplies from China – defense chief

That's according to Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who spoke in Brussels at a press conference following the meeting of the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group (UDCG) on Wednesday.

This is how the head of the defense ministry answered the question of an Ukrinform correspondent on how China's decision to redirect supplies of such drones and components from Ukraine and its allies to Russia affected the battlefield situation and the domestic production of FPV drones.

"Our capacity in Ukraine allows us to annually produce up to 10 million drones. It cost us $11 billion. We invested about $5 billion, and now we are $6 billion short, that’s what I proved to the Contact Group participants. As for FPVs, we can produce them ourselves, but we lack financing,” Umerov noted.

He recalled that recently there were reports that Chinese-made Mavic drones were redirected to Russia, and Ukraine had problems with their purchase, so we had to seek these products in other countries, through various channels, including among UDCG partners.

 “Later, we launched a program to localize the production of such drones. At first, we had issues, but now we are ordering a Ukrainian-made product, and this is how we close this gap,” the Ukrainian Defense Minister added.

As reported earlier, a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which brings together the efforts of about 50 countries providing military assistance to Ukraine, was held in Brussels on Wednesday, June 4. On June 5, a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council at the level of defense ministers will be held at the Alliance Headquarters.