Ukrainian manufacturers face a shortage of small jet engines for strike drones and missiles like Peklo, threatening further industry expansion.
This situation is caused by quite limited production volumes of such components in Europe.
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As Reuters reports, Ukrainian enterprises rely on products from a small number of European companies, including Czech PBS, German JetCat and Dutch Destinus. Industry giants like GE Aerospace and Rolls-Royce avoid this segment, preferring large aviation engines.
In other words, a situation arises with limited number of suppliers manufacturing drone-needed engines, typically no larger than 30 cm and manufactured from light materials. The reason cited is high development cost for such products, which does not pay off until receiving large orders.
Czech PBS has increased production fivefold since 2023, and by end of 2026 plans to scale up to 1,000 units per year, which will be an eightfold increase. Approximately 35% of this quantity should arrive in Ukraine.
Another Czech company — ZofiTech — reports producing approximately 200 turbojet engines monthly, with practically all going to Ukraine. At the same time, they expect demand in coming months will only be greater and reach thousands.
It is noted that Ukrainian enterprises are also working on their own engines. However, often this is still development, and if production has been achieved, rates are still very small and meager compared to need.
Defense Express notes that domestic developments in this direction include Shepit with 200 km range from SCOPA Industries company. However, even developing and bringing such an engine to ready state is insufficient, as establishing serial mass production of similar products while ensuring price/quality is also not simple.
One can also mention AI-PBS-350, which Ukrainian Ivchenko-Progress developed jointly with Czech PBS. However, currently there is no information about its localization in Ukraine, while Czech capacities were mentioned earlier. It is more suited for full-fledged cruise missiles than missile-drones due to its serious power. Given that Defense Forces are only increasing strike quantities on russians, demand will grow. Plus it should be said that although currently there is no public mention of non-jet engine shortage for other long-range drones, it is quite possible similar problem exists there too.
Correcting such situation primarily includes, logically, production volume increases, which existing market players are already engaged in. However, as already stated, suppliers are mainly foreign companies.
Regarding domestic solution paths, one should work both on own samples and involve foreign products for localization, both engines themselves and components for them. The latter will help build industrial base which has somewhat declined over last 30 years, on which Ukrainian developments can then be made more simply.
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