Kyiv: Ukraine achieves parity with Russia in long-range kamikaze drone arsenals
Ukraine has reached parity with Russia in the number of long-range kamikaze drones in its arsenal, said Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Development of Education, Science and Technology, and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov on the podcast “Slon”.
"When it comes to the area of 'Shaheds' and long-range drones, I'll just quote Budanov. A few days ago, in an interview, he said that we have reached parity with these drones. And I will say it's true. We have up to ten manufacturers producing long-range kamikaze drones," Fedorov stated.
Fedorov noted that drone production is only limited by funding. "In every domain—air and sea—we continue an active technological fight, and certainly, there will be new achievements," he emphasized.
According to Fedorov, production continues to scale up. Ukraine has been successful in launching the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) market from scratch, achieving a technological leap in this area.
"It is possible to produce thousands of these drones. Thousands have already been made, and almost every day something is burning in Russian territory. We can scale this up. We have launched the 'Army of Drones' as a state program. In half a year, we have caught up with the number of drones. Russia should understand that we will continue to scale up, and we have just started this technological fight. Now we have built the foundation for it," asserted Fedorov.
Fedorov also announced the introduction of an improved version of the MAGURA maritime drone, with a "new technological leap" expected in its development in 2024.
On February 10, reports indicated that the Russian Armed Forces have started using "smart" drones with machine vision capabilities. While machine vision is not particularly related to artificial intelligence, these "smart" drones are capable of bypassing electronic warfare systems and autonomously reaching their targets.
Previously, on January 31, a Ukrainian Armed Forces lieutenant with the call sign "Alex" mentioned that Russian drones with machine vision pose a threat to Ukrainian soldiers, as they can withstand electronic warfare countermeasures.