Key Points and Summary – A top Ukrainian drone manufacturer has accused “unscrupulous” European companies of industrial espionage and fraud.
-Roman Knyazhenko, CEO of Skyeton, claims some Western firms feign cooperation to gain access to his facilities, only to “steal the secrets” of Ukraine’s battle-proven drone technology.
-He alleges these companies then conduct fake “combat tests” far from the front lines to fraudulently win billions in government contracts back home for unproven systems.
-Another Ukrainian executive called the practice “worse than China,” warning it not only siphons funds from the war effort but could also get soldiers killed.
Ukraine Has a New Drone Problem
WARSAW, POLAND – In an extensive report published by the London Daily Telegraph, what is described as “unscrupulous European drone makers” are accused of “faking” battlefield tests of their own drone designs “while at the same time trying to steal the secrets of Ukrainian drone manufacturers.”
This report is one of several revelations of the problems associated with working with European firms, according to the head of one of Ukraine’s major local drone manufacturers.
Specifically, the remarks have come from Roman Knyazhenko, the CEO of Skyeton. He has also levelled serious charges in the Telegraph interview, saying that some Western defense enterprises are fraudulently claiming their drones have been “combat tested” in Ukraine. What has taken place, he stated for the UK daily, is that these firms have only conducted short flights of these drones well away from the front lines and not anywhere close to where they would be subject to being shot at by Russian anti-drone systems.
These drone prototypes are then taken back home, he continued, where European governments then pour billions into their development and manufacture. Therefore, valuable resources are expended on the procurement of systems that have not undergone a comprehensive set of combat trials and are likely to fail as advertised.
Ukraine Speaks Out to National Security Journal
“This is the worst kind of not only war profiteering but also fraudulent use of government procurement funds,” said an executive from another Ukrainian drone enterprise director who spoke to National Security Journal and is also aware of this practice.
“These companies are not only stealing from the budget that was allocated to defend their nation, but they are also siphoning off funding that was intended to support Ukraine in this war against Russia.
Worse Than The Chinese
“What some of these companies are doing is worse than what Western companies have accused the Chinese of doing for years now,” said the exec from this other drone enterprise. “This is not just trying to steal someone else’s intellectual property, but then they try to pass it off as a working, functional system. Some soldier will take one of these into the field someday thinking he can use it in combat and end up having his a** handed to him,” he said to NSJ.
Skyeton’s Knyazhenko described the sequence of events as starting with European drone makers visiting his firm with proposals of cooperation. Then they use their access to his facility to try to steal the know-how his firm has developed.
“Many European drone makers are doing a fantastic job, and we work with a number of them,” Mr Knyazhenko said. “But others are promising a lot just to talk with you more, to find out what secrets you have, and then they’re disappearing. These dishonest companies are trying to sniff around to find out how we’re operating, what kind of solutions we have that work on the battlefield.”
“Then they do beautiful pitch books, beautiful presentations about how they’re operating in Ukraine, he told the London daily. “But actually they’ve done just a couple of flights in L’viv [the far western city in Ukraine close to the Polish border],” which is more than 1,000 km from any of the real fighting.
“Sometimes I open presentations of other [unmanned] aircrafts from Europe, and I see literally my own words [repeated], without any change,” he said.
“The big problem, after that, is that billions of dollars go to the companies that still don’t have any idea what they’re doing,” he continued in his interview with the Telegraph.
Under Pressure on Drone Tech
The country that buys a drone from these firms is headed for real trouble, said Knyazhenko, “because they’re investing in technology that’s actually fake. In the end, you will have nothing.”
Skyeton’s Raybird can carry a variety of payloads, including reconnaissance cameras, radio frequency locators, and other systems, while flying up to 2,500km. It also has a 28-hour mission duration capability.
The system has been developed, say its designers, only after years of painstaking labor, and it has undergone hundreds of engineering modifications per year to conform to the changing conditions on the battlefield.
Then there is the problem of the Russian enemy adapting and the Sketon team having to react accordingly. “Sometimes it’s just two weeks before a technology that was the most important on the battlefield isn’t working anymore,” Mr Knyazhenko explained.
“We can sometimes help destroy, in one flight, [enemy] equipment worth billions,” Mr Knyazhenko said.
Before Russia’s illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014, Skyeton produced the ultralight K-10 Swift aircraft. But today, its team of 500 employees is working day and night almost exclusively with the Ukrainian military.
“Just imagine the situation when the engineering crew comes in and something’s broken in the system,” Mr Knyazhenko said. “It means that right now, while they’re here, the brigade doesn’t have this equipment that supports them.”
“They’re asking you, okay, how long will it take to repair? In peacetime, you would say a couple of weeks or a month. But right now, you have one night. Because if you do not do it one night, tomorrow the enemy will try and approach us, and we will not have aircraft in the air, so we will have casualties.”
“The pressure is huge,” Mr Knyazhenko said. “Mentally, it’s very difficult.”
To him, one of the most dangerous misunderstandings by European companies attempting to enter the Ukrainian market is the real-life challenges involved in manufacturing UAVs.
“They think if they come here, check someone’s factory, they can easily create the same in their country.”
But nobody would make the same mistake with car manufacturing, he said.
“To make a BMW from nothing in one year, it’s impossible,” he said. “You will spend 10, 15, 20 years developing and making it until, at last, you will be very close to BMW, right?”
“It’s the same story here.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
More Military
We Almost Touched the F-117 Stealth Fighter
