“Now we can state: we are producing 10 million drones a year. Ten million – and there will be 20 million.” President Volodymyr Zelensky said it on Tuesday at Statehood Day celebrations in Kyiv.
He said production had outrun expectations. “I remember when I first publicly announced the state’s plan to produce 1 million drones a year. There was a lot of skepticism, both in Ukraine and abroad,” he told the crowd. Zelensky added that Ukraine intends to reach the 20 million mark together with its allies.
The claim comes with some history behind it. In June, Deputy Defense Minister Mstyslav Banik told the NATO Parliamentary Assembly that Ukrainian industry could produce up to 20 million drones a year in future, provided it gets enough funding and support from allies. He said the industry could also build thousands of missiles, both for long-range strikes and for air defense, and urged allies to invest more.
A 2025 Bloomberg report put Ukrainian output at about 4 million drones a year, ranging from long-range strike aircraft to cheap first-person-view models flown through onboard cameras. The same report said the US builds roughly 100,000 military drones annually. “It’s not just the quantity of drones, it’s the variety,” RAND analyst Michael Bohnert told Bloomberg. “Probably more than all NATO countries combined right now.”
Makers and partners
Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the number of domestic drone manufacturers grew from 10 in 2022 to more than 500 by 2025. “You are not in the global defense tech market if your product has not been tested in Ukraine,” he said.
European governments have taken notice. Skyeton and Fire Point have expanded production into Slovakia, Denmark and the United Kingdom, often with backing from European governments.
On Wednesday Zelensky signed a new “Drone Deal” with the EU during European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Kyiv.
