UK and Ukraine to Launch Joint Drone Production Under “Octopus” Project
Ukraine and the United Kingdom plan to start joint production of interceptor drones to improve the fight against Russian Shahed drones.
The Gaze reports on it, referring to Bloomberg.
The Octopus project is a joint initiative between the UK and Ukraine, which is currently in the negotiation stage and could be implemented in the coming months.
According to UK Minister of Defense Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard, Britain plans to first establish production of interceptors at home, with the aim of then shipping them all to Ukraine.
“Very shortly we’ll be producing around 2,000 drones a month, deliberately shipping all of them to Ukraine so they can be used to intercept Russian drones,” said Pollard on the sidelines of the Defense Industries Forum in Kyiv.
The goal of this initiative is to create an effective means of countering the swarms of Shahed-type drones that Russia uses to attack Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure on a daily basis.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces Command reported that in September alone, Russia launched nearly 6,900 drones in Ukraine, more than half of which were Shahed drones. And on October 10, Russia launched another attack on Ukraine's civilian and energy infrastructure, resulting in several casualties and power outages in various regions of Ukraine.
Ukraine is already working on the development of interceptors that lock onto targets and crash into them, but it needs technological and financial support from partners for mass production.
Kyiv emphasizes that it has the industrial capacity to produce approximately $35 billion worth of weapons next year, but needs investment, joint ventures, and direct purchases.
Pollard stressed that the UK could contribute research, development, and advanced manufacturing, and announced other joint projects, including the production of guided bombs.
On the whole, cooperation in the military-industrial sphere is seen as part of a broader strategy to contain Russia and rearm Europe.
“We’re starting with drones for obvious reasons,” he said. “But in general Ukraine is an essential partner for us in terms of creating the technologies we need to deter Russia and to re-arm Europe.”
As The Gaze informed earlier, the United Kingdom is preparing to deploy a new line of domestically produced drones to form a so-called “drone wall” designed to bolster NATO’s defenses against Russia.