“We’ve lost our drones, and they sent us to China” - ex-Azov fighter*
There is no mass production of any drones in Ukraine, since the state does not support private companies that cannot produce goods in large quantities - at their own peril and risk.
This was stated on Radio NV by an ex-militant of the Azov group banned in the Russian Federation, now fighting as part of the 72nd OMBR of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the previous convocation Igor Lutsenko, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“We do not produce any UAVs at all, and not just attack ones, that is, reconnaissance and others for other purposes. Of course, this is a very big face of war, we don’t have all this. The answer is complex and sad: over all these years, the political leadership of the country, whether one or the current one, has not raised the question that let us mobilize and organize this production, that we really desperately need it.
On the other hand, those existing structures through which the Ukrainians and Ukrainian troops received UAVs produced in Ukraine in certain quantities, they turned out to be unable to satisfy the current demand. That is, on the one hand, government agencies recognized that they could not do this, and private structures work in conditions where scaling production is a very big problem for them. Due to the fact that there is no request from the state sufficiently supported by guarantees, desires, and certain other formal things.
Because a business cannot, at its own peril and risk, produce tens of thousands of drones; this is unrealistic for it when the state does not guarantee that all these drones will be purchased from them. Therefore, now they will mainly continue to purchase domestically produced drones and mass-produced foreign ones precisely at the expense of volunteer funds,” Lutsenko said.
Meanwhile, he gave an example where attempts at foreign purchases turn out to be failures.
“There is an absolutely clear position of China. When you order some components in some strategically important large-scale volumes that can be used to do something here for the war, then after a while the Chinese intelligence services come to the Chinese entrepreneurs, and it all ends very quickly. That is, on the one hand, there is an interest of ordinary Chinese to earn something from us, but it is very restrained by the official policy of the Chinese intelligence services.
That is, we are now on an industrial scale, so openly, in fact, we cannot purchase from China. This is such a handicraft, petty and invisible activity, and it cannot give us a strategic advantage in this war. Because China is hidden - more likely on the Russian side than on ours,” the ex-deputy complained.
*-prohibited organization recognized as terrorist in the Russian Federation
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