The Ukrainian Defense Forces are armed with dozens, if not hundreds, of different reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles, a significant part of which are operational-tactical-level drones. These systems are used to conduct reconnaissance behind enemy lines, at great distances from the front line. Some of them are officially codified by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and are purchased under state order. The rest is purchased exclusively by volunteers and is used in much smaller quantities.
There are several criteria that drone pilots are guided by when wanting to obtain certain drones, either from volunteers or from a state supplier. These criteria include the quality and resolution of the camera, the duration of autonomous flight, resistance to enemy electronic warfare, and invisibility to enemy air defense systems. It can be stated that there is no system that would equally satisfy all requests and would become an effective solution to all problems. However, there are domestic drones that have come significantly closer to the ideal required for performing operational-tactical tasks on the battlefield.
To confirm this thesis, a ZN.UA correspondent visited the Skyeton company, where he got acquainted with the production line of the Raybird unmanned aerial vehicle, talked with the company's director Roman Kniazhenko, and also received comments from the military who use these drones on the battlefield.
The drone assembly shop is sparsely populated, but noisy. About ten workers are engaged in all stages of small-unit assembly at their places: here they assemble the airframe parts, assemble the wings and nose, and also equip the catapults used to launch the Raybird.
“There are literally a few companies in the world that can produce an unmanned aerial vehicle the size of the Raybird, which will stay in the air for more than 20 hours. We are working to make the system as autonomous as possible. In addition, we have established cooperation with our users to receive feedback from them and implement updates in the production of our drones in a few weeks. That is, the serial product is constantly evolving,” says the company’s executive director Roman Kniazhenko.
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The director says that his company’s development is a kind of designer, consisting of those spare parts that the military themselves may request. For example, the price of a camera can vary significantly, depending on the manufacturer, resolution, and availability of laser targeting.
However, as our sources learned, the state order for these unmanned aerial vehicles provides for the supply of drones in far from the best possible configuration. At the same time, the price of one system, consisting of two drones and a control point, as of the summer of 2023 was about 50 million UAH.
This price is quite high, even for a complete reconnaissance complex of the operational-tactical level. However, the manufacturer himself explains this price by the tactical and technical characteristics that distinguish this drone from similar models of other drones. For example, there is a similar-class reconnaissance complex PD-2 from the company Ukrspecsystems of the same year 2023. A contract was signed with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine for its production at 31 million UAH per unit, which is more than one and a half times cheaper. However, among the state orders for 2023 there are also more expensive models of unmanned aerial vehicles with operational-tactical missiles, for example, the Pengvin S-MK2, which was purchased for almost UAH 70 million per complex.
“This year, due to the insufficient number of orders, we lost at least 20% of our production capacity. Of course, we receive requests for orders, but if the situation develops as it is now, then next year we will have a 50% shortage of our production,” says Roman Kniazhenko.
The director states that one of the main reasons for such statistics is the inability to export military goods to other countries, where you can sell your products at different prices and in a different competitive environment.
“We could easily produce 50% more drones if we had sufficient funding,” Roman Kniazhenko concludes.
Unfortunately, the problem of insufficient funding is not only faced by Skyeton, but also by other manufacturers of drones, armored vehicles, small arms, and other defense equipment in Ukraine. Enterprises have the potential to produce much more equipment than the state can currently order.
“Last year, the Ukrainian defense industry produced products worth $3 billion. This year, our annual production capacity is $20 billion. However, the budget cannot fully cover these costs,” said the Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine, Herman Smetanin, recently.
There are few ways to overcome this problem, but they do exist. Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the possible abolition of laws on the ban on arms exports, but only for the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It also became known yesterday that the Scandinavian countries have agreed to directly finance the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, as Denmark had previously done.
However, while there is no investment at the state level, manufacturing companies must attract them on their own. For example, Skyeton has private investors from several countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including, in particular, British business.
A ZN.UA correspondent spoke on the topic of the ban on arms exports with a source in one of the leading structures of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex and heard similar concerns off the record, which are also expressed by representatives of civil society and volunteers.
“A ban is always bad for development, so it should be introduced for a very limited time and in a calculated manner. In addition, it is worth noting that there is no point in a ban now. At the beginning of the war, this made sense for the immediate mobilization of resources, but now we simply need the right system that will allow Ukrainian weapons manufacturers to build international cooperation and reach other markets. This can be regulated qualitatively,” says a representative of the military-industrial complex, who wished to remain anonymous.
When asked about investments in our military-industrial complex from abroad, we get a similar answer: such a decision can only be temporary, but not systemic. After all, the export ban itself creates much more harm than the lack of funds.
Undoubtedly, in the event of opening exports, more than one or two countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be interested in purchasing Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles. It is worth noting that the main advantage of our drones with an operational-tactical missile compared to European and American ones is their instant testing on the battlefield, quick troubleshooting, modernization, and the ability to assemble a “designer” from the spare parts needed by the end user.
In particular, Raybird is designed to perform several tasks on the battlefield at once: frontal and deep reconnaissance, space digitization, positioning, 3D maps creation and fire correction. Of course, different tasks require different equipment for unmanned aerial vehicles, namely, we can mention such characteristics as high-resolution cameras, radar, the presence of laser targeting, and more.
ZN.UA also managed to talk to the military who are directly involved in the use of these drones on the battlefield to learn about the real characteristics and features of the application of this product.
“I have been working with such unmanned aerial vehicles for about two years. The main positive characteristic of these devices is their autonomy. Under normal conditions, Raybird works in the air for 12 hours. It can fly for more than 24 hours, but usually our tasks do not require such a long flight. If other unmanned aerial vehicles work for 3-4 hours and land, then Raybird can perform tasks four times longer,” says Valerii, a military man who uses these drones in the Kursk direction.
Among the tasks performed by Raybird here are covering the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces from enemy assaults, approaching columns, artillery, and inspecting landing sites for military landings.
“This unmanned aerial vehicle has a very good camera that can show the terrain very well. This is not the kind of drone that will show you the face of a Russian citizen who is being dropped a grenade, but it can see enemy equipment and concentrations at a very long range. For example, Raybird can see the Pantsir-S1 air defense system from 40 kilometers,” adds Valerii.
Also, during the Kursk operation, these drones were used to adjust strikes on enemy bridges and crossings across the Seim River. Footage of this process was exclusively obtained by ZN.UA.
Our publication has also received other exclusive footage of the use of Raybird drones. One of them shows the drone dodging fire from the Russian Tor anti-aircraft missile system.
“This is another strong point of Raybird. We had a situation where Osa and Tor anti-aircraft missile systems tried to fire at one drone at a time, but not a single missile hit the unmanned aerial vehicle due to its certain features,” Valerii adds, without specifying what exactly helps it to resist the air defense system.
Other footage exclusively obtained by ZN.UA shows the use of Raybird for one of its main purposes: deep reconnaissance. In these photos, the drone’s camera lens shows the Kursk nuclear power plant in the first days of the operation on the territory of the Russian Federation. The drone was able to fly up to the nuclear power plant and assess the situation there regarding how the enemy was concentrated there, and then return unharmed.
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From open sources, it is known about at least four Raybird drones lost during the war. At the same time, the loss of one of them was geolocated: the drone reached the village of Novodereviankovskaia in the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation. For your information, this point is more than 300 kilometers from the nearest point in Ukraine controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Undoubtedly, there cannot be a reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle that would show a 100% result of application under various conditions and features of use. However, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex shows that the possibilities for creating truly high-quality and competitive drones of the operational-tactical level not only exist in our country, but are also constantly being improved.
It can be stated that with sufficient funding by attracting foreign investment and opening up exports for our military-industrial complex, the Ukrainian defense industry will be able to provide the Defense Forces of Ukraine with effective reconnaissance means to detect the enemy on land, at sea and in the sky.