The Ukrainian pioneer drone running on the Russian military machine

“Two years ago we were two steps ahead of the Russians,” according to Oleksandr Yakovenko, CEO of one of the largest Ukraine Drone manufacturers. “Now, however, we are just one step ahead.”

Last month, Russian soldiers ran motorcycles throughout the Ukrainian territory in numerous, which was impossible for Kiev’s forces to deploy enough drones to stop them all, he recalled.

“Right now (the battlefield) is not again technology“Yakovenko told The Financial Times of his headquarters in the port of the Black Sea in Odesa.” It is how to adapt to new strategies. “

The ingenuity of UkraineThe start-ups drone have been a rare place for their economy and their campaign to stop the Russian advance. In the last two years, the first line of Ukraine has become more and more dominated by drones, which control a land of no man 10-15 km wide. Moscow has also revolutionized its use and provision of drones, with devastating effects not only on the battlefield, but also on cities.

Yakovenko, 35, the founder of TAF DRONS, is at the forefront of this revolution, as the war has been inclined from its initial dependence on heavy artillery to this higher technology combat.

It has been launched since the first months of the complete -scale invasion of Russia in 2022, its company made 350,000 drones last year, of a total of about 2 million people in Ukraine in 2024. It has Ukrainian government contracts for the same amount in the first six months of this year, and hopes to expand the production of constituent parts in Europe.

But Yakovenko does not celebrate. He talked about the challenges and complexity of the Drones War, from countering the sophisticated Russian Drone blocking systems to rethinking the supply chain.

For the last three years, China has provided most of the thermal cameras, carbon frames and battery cells for cheap drone in the first person who are the Drone’s Footoldiers. Yakovenko said he spent $ 1.2 million in the last 18 months on Chinese components, often relying on third parties to evade export controls.

But the commercial tensions between Washington and Beijing have intensified the effects of a Chinese inlap, introduced last September, on the exports of key components, including sensors for thermal cameras. Ukrainian drone companies have more difficult to evade restrictions.

“Even after a few weeks of the trade war, we have a huge problem,” said Yakovenko. “We must delay orders one month because of repression.” There are only a good number of European companies that make these parts and their products are much more expensive than the Chinese.

Yakovenko also has no illusions about the Russian threat that changes the form. “We usually innovate first. But when we create something new, they quickly get an answer.”

One of the most successful Russian innovations has been the use of fiber optics drones that cannot be hooked, as they are based on a cable on the breadth of human hair for communication, instead of radio signal.

Although Yakovenko said they were not a change of game because the cable range was limited to 20 km and often breaks in sub-zero temperatures, he hopes greater use this summer, after being manufactured in Shanghai, where winters are much warmer than in Ukraine.

The Ukraine Drones War has been healthy as a forecast for a new age of war, but it is a revolution that Ukrainians argue that the western military has been slowly to appreciate. “It is well understood in Ukraine, Russia and China, but not elsewhere,” said Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the former Ukraine Army Chief and now Ambassador in the United Kingdom, told a conference by Royal United Services in London last week.

Yakovenko and other drone manufacturers are now being written by military and western companies for vision and collaborations. In the sector there is an increasing expectation that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, will allow this year the export of drones to Europe.

“We have many good companies with very good technology and they would like to make their products in Europe,” said Yakovenko. But most European governments would prefer to invest in their own companies. “Many foreigners use our war for education. We understand it. It’s okay. They also help us.”

Yakovenko often wears a hooded sweatshirt with the words “obtain”, “hit” and “repeat”, scored by the pictures of a drone, a tank and three arrows surrounding a drone.

The former director of the logistics company turned Drone’s manufacturer embodies the resilience Ukraine has shown against his much stronger enemy, which will need if the war continues and the Trump administration withdraws the support of America in Kiev as he has threatened to do.

Yakovenko’s headquarters are at Oda, which is regularly hit by Russian drones and missiles. Every two months it moves its security production center.

Russia’s large-scale invasion morning wrote to his staff: “Guys, you have four hours to think. Let yourself be. Either if you stay, we will do our best to help our military.”

Almost all stayed and helped pivot from hand over basic products to supplies to the front line. It was on a trip of this type in 2022 that he saw the soldiers modifying a sports drone for the battlefield; Put his mind put his mind. He founded a charity organization that gathered hundreds of drones per month for the front.

He was then called to Kyiv to see Mykhailo Fedorov, the minister supervising the drones. Remember that Fedorov said, “It is very nice that you started a charity and provide drones for free, but please build a business. We need to be competitive.”

One of the reasons why Western defense companies have been reluctant to invest in drone production is that the rhythm of change is relentless.

The current cult drone is often redundant in a few months as new models arise. In 2023, the average distance for a drone Kamikaze exploding on the impact was 5 km with a useful load of about 1kg, he said. “They can now go 40 km with a useful load of 3kg.”

By 2025, it provides for greater use of terrestrial drones: “It will be the year of robots with wheels. They will be used to evacuate people on the front and, if we have to send supplies to the front, we do not need to risk people.”

The rapid development of artificial intelligence means that “View Person Person” (FPV) drones could stop being early in the front line to direct them, and they can be at an office hundreds of miles away.

But, while Ukraine still has an advantage over Russia in innovation, he warned that when it came to production, Moscow had been more efficient. “Russia is step by step. If you continue (like this) for two years, it will be impossible (for us) to continue defending.”