Recent reports that the Saudi energy giant Aramco is in direct talks with a major Ukrainian drone manufacturer to sell tens of thousands of interceptor drones are not true, a Friday statement from the major Ukrainian robot aircraft manufacturer Wild Hornets said.
The Ukrainian company is not negotiating the export of its interceptor drones with any country or company from the Persian Gulf, and a recent Wall Street Journal article reporting that a deal like that had been agreed to with Aramco is inaccurate, the statement said.
The Wall Street Journal, on March 12, reported that the world’s largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, is in talks with at least two Ukrainian companies – SkyFall and Wild Hornets – to purchase interceptor drones.
Wild Hornets is in contact “daily by many representatives from the Middle East and European Union countries regarding the possible export of STING drones. However, our efforts are currently focused on cooperation with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the Main Intelligence Directorate,” the company statement said in part.
SkyFall had not responded to a Kyiv Post request for comment by the time this article was published.A fast-flying, $2,000 aircraft about the size of a coffee machine, the Wild Hornets-manufactured STING drone, in the past six months, has become a critical component of Ukraine’s multi-layered national air defense system, which defends Ukrainian airspace against an average 100-200 Russian drones every night, and up to 800 aircraft during the heaviest strikes.
Skyfall’s recently developed P1-SUN interceptor drone is advertised to be even cheaper, at $1,000 an aircraft. SkyFall’s premier products are a first-person view (FPV) drone called Shrike and a bomber drone called Vampire, which is widely used across Ukraine’s armed forces.
The great majority of the Russian attack drones launched against Ukraine are Iran-manufactured Shaheds, or a copy produced under license in Russia and marketed under the product name Gerber. Both aircraft are relatively cheap, costing $20,000-50,000.
According to Ukrainian Air Force statements, about one in three explosives-toting Shaheds are knocked down by interceptor drones, a weapons system largely not operated by any other army in the world. At least half of the intercepts are carried out by STING drones, Wild Hornets corporate statements say.
Company representatives are currently participating in Ukraine government-led talks with other countries on training operators and supplying drones, and Wild Hornets is “ready to join such assistance within the framework of diplomatic initiatives,” the statement says.
If and when a deal is reached to deliver Wild Hornets drones to a foreign purchaser, deliveries would take place without compromising aircraft deliveries to Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) users, the statement said.
A Ukrainian miltech company founded in early 2023 originally as a non-profit charitable fund supporting troops with crowd-sourced drones, Wild Hornets (Дикі шершні) is a prominent Ukrainian manufacturer specializing in First Person View (FPV), bomber and interceptor drones. Its latest interceptor product – a STING variant called Werewolf – reportedly can reach speeds over 300 kilometers/hour (186 miles/hour) at ranges around 15-25 kilometers (9-16 miles).
Major Wild Hornets competitors in Ukraine’s domestic market include Ukrspecsystems, a company with strong links to government aerospace companies in the Soviet- and post-Soviet eras; and Skeyton, a company formed in 2006 as one of the first private aerospace firms in the country.
Ukrspecsystems’ main market niche is higher-tech specialized aircraft operated by the Ukrainian military beyond the front lines’ air operations, with high-profile products including the Shark and PD-2 unmanned service aircraft (UAS) reconnaissance drones, as well as long-range strike drones and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). Recently, the company opened a production facility in Suffolk, UK (Mildenhall and Elmsett), with a reported £200 million ($265 million) investment to produce up to 1,000 drones monthly for Ukrainian forces. The UK government is a co-backer, and aircraft produced will also go to the UK armed forces.
Skyeton was founded in 2006 as a light aircraft manufacturer and moved to drone production in 2014 following Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine. a developer of light sport aircraft before shifting focus to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) after the 2014 Russian aggression. Its flagship product is a long-range, fixed-wing reconnaissance drone called Raybird, a tested aircraft in combat use in multiple variants, for the past decade. Per corporate statements, the firm employs 500+ people, among them 100 engineers, and produces more than 1,000 high-end reconnaissance aircraft like Raybird a month.
More than 500 companies, official and underground, are thought to be manufacturing drones in Ukraine. Ukraine’s defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, in February said Ukraine was on track to produce a record seven million drones during 2026, comparable with the five to eight million drones thought to be manufactured by China annually.
The most expensive interceptor missiles employed by US and allied forces in the present hostilities in the Persian Gulf cost between $4-8 million dollars, making a cheap interceptor drone like a STINGER, with a sticker cost of around $2,000, a cost-effective alternative.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on March 6 announced Kyiv would send at least three drone expert teams to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia, with deployments starting around March 9-11, and teams already on the ground by March 11-13. According to Ukrainian news reports, additional Ukrainian advisor teams travelled to the US-run Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan to beef up air defenses there.
Zelensky, in follow-up statements, said that Ukraine’s experience in developing a complex air defense network to detect and deploy interception assets to combat incoming Shahed drones is at least as important as having actual interceptor drones to shoot at a Shahed.