Italy wants to build drones together with Ukraine

Zelensky and Meloni discussed it in Rome, with the aim of exchanging military expertise and weapons

In his visit to Rome on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky talked about drones, among other things. He discussed it with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but above all his collaborators discussed it together with officials from the Italian Ministry of Defense. Zelensky presented what he calls Drone Dealan agreement to share Ukrainian military skills – which have grown enormously in four years of war – with the defense industries of allied countries in exchange for systems and weapons that Ukraine does not produce, such as Patriot missiles.

Over the last four years, Ukraine has become one of the most advanced countries in the world in the design and use of drones, developed in part to reduce the number of soldiers sent to the front and above all to reduce costs compared to conventional air defense systems. To put it very simply: since Ukraine had no money to buy interceptor missiles, instead of launching very expensive missiles against Russian drones as had always been done, it began launching drones against drones.

Since 2022, numerous companies have opened that have developed this type of defense systems, and today Ukraine is capable of producing hundreds of thousands of interceptor drones per month. Just one company, General Cherry, produces 100,000 per month. Ukraine has also perfected other technologies, such as sensors for recognizing approaching aircraft and communications jamming systems, which send drones into confusion.

Ukraine made a reputation for itself in this area even later collaboration with the Persian Gulf countries attacked by drones launched from Iran. In recent weeks, teams of Ukrainian experts have been sent to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia with the aim of helping their armed forces.

Meloni confirmed Italian interest in developing joint production and said that Ukraine has become a “leading nation” in the drone sector. The most concrete hypothesis is to start a co-production with Leonardo, which is owned by the state and is one of the largest and most important European companies in the defense sector. Leonardo has recently changed guide: Lorenzo Mariani he replaced the former minister Roberto Cingolani, amid some controversy over the choice, wanted by the government. “Our expertise, our military experience, our defense capabilities in the fields of drones, missiles, electronic warfare and data sharing – we propose to combine all this with the capabilities of our partners,” Zelensky said.

The operational details of the collaboration between Italy and Ukraine are still to be defined and it will be up to the technical structures of the two countries to develop the project in the coming weeks. Alexander Kamyshin, a former minister of strategic industries and now an advisor in charge of Ukraine’s arsenal and coordinating deals to open weapons manufacturing factories in Europe, aims to open at least ten factories by the end of the year. Italy is not yet on the list, but negotiations have started after Wednesday’s meeting.

In addition to drones, Meloni and Zelensky discussed Viktor Orbán’s election defeat in Hungary (Orbán had blocked the 90 billion euro European loan to Ukraine) and the war in the Middle East. After the meeting with Meloni, Zelensky also went to the Quirinale to visit the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, who is also the head of the armed forces.