Ukraine has significantly reduced its reliance on Chinese components in drone production as Kyiv accelerates domestic manufacturing to support its war effort against Russia.
Drones have become a dominant weapon on the battlefield. According to Maj. Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, they are responsible for more than 90% of Russian battlefield losses.
“Given the risks of sourcing components from China, which is unfriendly to us, the main task is to produce them in Ukraine,” Brovdi told The New York Times.
During the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, most drones used by Ukrainian forces relied almost entirely on Chinese-made components.
By 2025, however, the share of Chinese parts had fallen to about 38%, according to data cited by the newspaper from the Ukrainian Council of Defense Industry and the Kyiv-based Snake Island Institute.
China introduced export restrictions on certain drone-related components in 2023 and expanded them in 2024.
While Beijing officially maintains neutrality in the war, analysts say Russia has received preferential access to some components that remain available for export.
Despite the shift toward domestic manufacturing, Ukrainian producers are unlikely to mass-produce fully “China-free” drones in the near future because Chinese components remain significantly cheaper and dominate global supply chains for key materials such as batteries.
The report also noted that two Ukrainian companies producing drones without Chinese components were recently selected to compete for contracts under a Pentagon program aimed at purchasing thousands of low-cost attack drones.
Brovdi said Ukrainian manufacturers have already made significant progress in replacing imports with domestic production.
“The strength of the Ukrainian manufacturer lies in the fact that import substitution has already taken place,” he told the newspaper.
New Ukrainian drone developments
Ukraine has also continued to introduce new domestically developed drones to the battlefield.
In March 2026, the Ukrainian military adopted the fiber-optic quadcopter “Ptashka,” which has a record operational range and is designed to strike enemy targets while remaining resistant to electronic warfare interference.
At the same time, new Ukrainian-made reconnaissance drones intended to replace Chinese DJI Mavic systems have begun arriving at the front. The first thousands of these drones have already been delivered to frontline units.
Another recent development is the Zoom drone created by the Ukrainian company Frontline Robotics, designed specifically to operate in conditions of intense electronic warfare.
The drone uses an artificial intelligence-based visual navigation system that allows it to find routes even when GPS signals are lost and can automatically return to its operator if communication is disrupted.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian manufacturers are also localizing the production of key components for long-range strike drones.
The Ukrainian company Fire Point has established in-house production of more than 97% of the engine components used in its FP-1/2 long-range strike drones, according to the company’s technical director Iryna Terekh.
Speaking in an interview with the French magazine Air & Cosmos, Terekh said the company is seeking to minimize imports and rely as much as possible on domestic production.
She added that during the initial stage of production the company relied entirely on imported engines and still uses them when necessary.
However, it quickly became clear that dependence on foreign suppliers would become a bottleneck for scaling production, prompting the company to pursue full localization of engine manufacturing.