About 200 companies producing drones in Ukraine - Shmyhal

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said this at a government meeting on Thursday, February 1, Ukrinform reports.

"Our focus is on drones and other military innovations. The key task is to intensify the production of drones, ammunition, and other modern weapons and supply the defense forces with them," he said.

He recalled that President Volodymyr Zelensky had set a clear goal of producing a million drones for the front this year.

According to Shmyhal, given the base and potential that the Ukrainian defense industry has today, this is a very realistic task.

"The government is systematically working to increase the number of Ukrainian drones at the front. We focus not only on state projects, but also on private companies," Shmyhal said.

He added that the government also focused on the development of the arms market, and "when four out of five companies in the defense sector are private businesses, it gives efficiency, innovation, speed."

He stressed that about 20 laws and regulatory acts shaping the arms market had been passed over the past one-and-a-half years.

At the same time, the admission of UAVs to operation was simplified, VAT and import duties on drone equipment were abolished, training grounds were created for training pilots and testing new types of drones, and the write-off procedure was simplified.

"Now in Ukraine, about 200 companies produce drones, while in the year before last there were only seven of them," Shmyhal said.

He specified that in 2023, Ukrainian companies produced and the state purchased 100 times more drones than in 2022.

"In general, the Army of Drones started the development of not only the UAV market, but also the entire defense technology market in Ukraine," he added.