Russia is using occupied Ukraine to support its domestic drone development and production industry. The Ukrainian Eastern Human Rights Group (EHRG) and Institute for Strategic Research and Security (ISRS) released a report on April 3 detailing how Russia is using land, infrastructure, and people in occupied Ukraine to expand drone development, production, and operator training. EHRG and ISRS reported that Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec has seized the Luhansk Aircraft Repair Plant (occupied Luhansk City, Luhansk Oblast) and the Snizhne Machine-Building Plant (occupied Snizhne, Donetsk Oblast) and is producing drones at both enterprises. The report noted that Russia is also using the Donbas Development Corporation, Vladimir Zhoga Republican Center for Unmanned Systems, LLC 3D-Techno, LLC NPO Front, LLC NPO Utesov, GC Almaz, and IP Grigoriadiadis (all in occupied Donetsk City) and the JSC Pervomaiske Mechanical Plant (occupied Pervomaiske, Luhansk Oblast) to produce components and assemble drone models for the Russian army. Russia is also using occupied Ukrainian land to build new drone training grounds, start technological preparatory courses in schools and colleges to train drone operators, and create new research and development centers. The Kremlin has routinely signaled its commitment to increasing Russian drone production capabilities and improving drone operations on the battlefield in Ukraine and appears to have plans to integrate Ukrainian infrastructure and production capabilities into its wider drone production campaign.
Russia is also integrating Ukrainian children into its wider drone operator training and drone production ecosystem. The EHRG and ISRS report emphasized that Russia has instituted drone training curricula for over 10,000 teenagers in secondary schools throughout occupied Ukraine. Primary school-aged children are also subjected to drone training in schools and extracurricular programs. Russia incentivizes children’s participation in drone training in part by “gamifying” the process and holding drone racing competitions throughout occupied Ukraine. The Kherson Oblast occupation Sports Ministry, for example, hosted its first drone racing tournament for children aged eight to 14 in occupied Skadovsk in May 2024. The Ukrainian Resistance Center also previously reported that Russian officials began a “special engineering class” in occupied Mariupol’s School 47 to teach students how to design and manufacture drones for the Russian army. Russian efforts to integrate Ukrainian children into drone production and operator training programs serve three main purposes: first to militarize Ukrainian children by exposing them to hyper-militarized ideals from a young age; second, to prepare Ukrainian children for potential future service in the Russian armed forces; and third, to support Russia’s domestic defense industrial base (DIB) output.
Key Takeaways:
- Russia is using occupied Ukraine to support its domestic drone development and production industry.
- Russia is also integrating Ukrainian children into its wider drone operator training and drone production ecosystem.
- Russian occupation administrators are implementing projects to increase the birth rate in occupied Ukraine and further Russia’s illegitimate claims to the territories it illegally occupies.
- Russia is deporting Ukrainian prisoners from prisons in occupied Ukraine to penal colonies throughout the Russian Federation.
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