Shaheds, Lancets, fiber-optic FPVs and the counter-drone scramble — Russia’s drone war, tracked.
Armin Papperger, Chairman and CEO of Rheinmetall AG, dismissed Ukraine’s drone program as kitchen-table hobbyism in an interview with The Atlantic published Friday, March 28. “They have 3D printers in the kitchen, and they produce parts for drones,” Papperger told the magazine. “This is not innovation.” He compared Ukraine’s drone development to playing “with Lego”…
Russia is scaling its drone warfare program at a pace that should get the attention of anyone watching the Ukraine conflict. Deputy Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Anatoly Kontsevoy announced at a Federation Council meeting that the Russian Armed Forces plan to train more than 70,000 drone specialists this year, according to Voennoedelo.…
Zelenskyy told Reuters Ukraine can produce 2,000 interceptor drones per day if it has the budget. Here is what that figure actually means and why the math matters.
On the table at the Brave1 pavilion at XPONENTIAL Europe 2026 in Düsseldorf sat a drone unlike anything else on the floor. The frame was large — arms stretched wide, propellers big enough to move serious air. Strapped to the body was a black housing with the VARTA logo and a prominent blue battery pack.…
Germany is funding the production of 15,000 Ukrainian-made STRILA interceptor drones for the National Guard of Ukraine, according to an announcement from the German Embassy in Ukraine on March 23. The multimillion-euro agreement — signed in Kyiv in the presence of German Chargé d’Affaires Maximilian Rasch, alongside representatives of the National Guard and Quantum Systems…
On the day TechEx showed its unjammable fiber-optic FPV drones in Düsseldorf, Russia’s intelligence was bugging their chief engineer’s office back in Ukraine.
The business card on the table at XPONENTIAL Europe 2026 in Düsseldorf read “General Cherry / Vlad Polikashkin / Marketing Director.” The booth behind it was the largest standalone Ukrainian stand on the floor — backlit walls, Ukrainian military unit insignia, a Ukrainian flag in the corner, and a steady line of visitors that did…
Three years ago, Ukraine had almost no commercial drone manufacturing industry at scale. Today, I was walking the floor at XPONENTIAL Europe 2026 in Düsseldorf — the leading European trade fair for autonomous technologies and robotics, running March 24–26 at Messe Düsseldorf — and Ukrainian companies occupied some of the busiest floor space in the…
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