In a nondescript office building in a
secret location, stacks and stacks of
one of the most lethally effective
weapons in this war.
They're put together like toys with care
and precision fitted with parts
programmed and customized to hunt,
intercept, and kill. They're made as
quickly as possible to meet demand from
the front. Starting as volunteers making
a hundred a month, they're now producing
a thousand times that. It's still not
enough uh because Russians have a lot of
troops, a lot of vehicles and our
soldiers uh
every day, every day uh tell us that we
need more, we need more weapons, uh we
need better, we need faster, we need it
higher, and uh more and more. I want to
show you Yeah. the testing room.
>> Each drone is tested before being sent
to the front line.
Demer played with drones at home before
the Russians occupied it. Now he's here
ensuring they're up to the job of
killing the enemy effectively.
This is how Ukraine has held off the
Russians for more than 3 years,
improvising with extraordinary startup
ingenuity. But for how much longer? The
factory is a key target for Russia. They
move often and keep its location secret.
We've been given exclusive access
because they need help. I need to say
that it's not about only money
investments. We need investments uh of
people of scientists of engineers uh
that can help us. They can give uh more
help. They can give more investments.
They can give uh more solutions, more
technical solutions. Uh for us, it's
about survival for now.
At the start of the war, drones gave
Ukrainians the power to hold off the
invaders, cheap and devastating, against
Russia's war machine. This is the $1,000
drone taking out a $300,000 Russian one.
In the air and on the ground, they have
hunted the enemy without mercy. But
they're losing the upper hand now with
implications not just for Ukraine.
This conflict has revolutionized
warfare. It's becoming a sci-fi battle
between machines. And whoever wins the
drones arms race gets the upper hand,
not just in this conflict, but other
wars to come.
>> This is what they're up against. The
Russians are now openly showing off
their drone factories. Sinister pictures
showing high-tech production lines,
churning out thousands of attack drones
to take off from the back of pickup
trucks.
Russia is operating on a scale Ukraine
can only dream of. Hundreds of these
killing machines are launched against
Ukraine every night, taking scores of
civilian lives.
It is a constant battle to stay one step
ahead. Alexandra showed us a new
prototype guided by a trail of fiber
optic thread to prevent Russian jamming.
But he says the Russians with Chinese
help have them too.
The Russians began using the technology
earlier and have scaled up production.
They've had considerable help from the
Chinese. Entire factories are under
contract to supply fiber exclusively to
Russia, producing it in vast quantities.
In just three and a half years, drones
have transformed the way war is waged,
raising the question, could humans soon
become obsolete on the battlefield? Do
you think drones will get rid of
soldiers completely?
>> Absolutely. I think it's a future and
nowadays we have statistics that 80% of
all strikes on the battlefield are done
by drones. We already understood from
the early beginning that the future is
in the future war it's about
technologies.
So um every I don't know every book that
you read about future it's it can be
right now.
>> While diplomats wrangle over security
guarantees for after the war, Ukraine
says it has more pressing needs right
now against Russia's militarized
economy. They are losing the edge and
can only prevail, they say, with more
help from the West. Dominic Worn, Sky
News Ukraine.