Ukrainian soldiers look for night-flying drones in the Donetsk Region.
Photographer: Kostyantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty ImagesUkrainian Drone Industry’s Next Target Is NATO Markets
Hungry for cash to keep pace with Russia, and with western allies seeking to build up their drone arsenals, Ukraine’s defense companies say exports are finally on the agenda.
The bucolic birch and pine forests that surround the town in Finland where Oleksandr Hrachov is building a drone assembly line for Ukraine remind him of Siberia. It’s not a happy memory — his father sent him there from Kyiv as a child, fearing radiation fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
That was a lifetime ago and in another country, before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Now when Hrachov thinks about Siberia he’s focused on how to inflict maximum pain on Russia’s economy with drone strikes to help defeat Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.