Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has consulted with investors and approved the location for the future plant for Baykar Makina, a Turkish company specializing in making unmanned aerial combat vehicles. One of its products, the Bayraktar TB2 attack drone, has shown impressive results in the war against the russian federation, and Ukraine does not give up on plans to build a plant for producing those in its territory.
In particular, representatives of the Ukrainian defense ministry met with their Turkish partners to establish the location for the Center for maintenance, current repair, modernization and personnel training for Bayraktar drones. This lineage of drones includes TB2, Akıncı and Kızılelma models as well as a few smaller recon UAVs.
Read more: Bayraktar Akinci tested the TRG-230-IHA Supersonic Missile
"Recently, we had a number of meetings with investors and all sides of interest, during which we agreed on the location of the Center and developed a Road Map project on how we plan to provide the land and manage the issues regarding the joint use of an airfield," said Ukrainian defense ministry official on land and funding issues Borys Zakutnii, as quoted by ArmyInform.
The planned amount of investment in the project is estimated by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine at USD 95.5 million over the next 10 years, while the first products of the plant are expected to come off assembly lines in 2025. In one of its earlier statements, Baykar said the facility was expected to be built in Kyiv. There is also sufficient infrastructure around the city the facilitate aircraft manufacture and testing.
As noted in a message shared by the Ministry of Defense, building the plant will require the "transfer of high technology, localization of manufacture of state-of-art drones, which have proven their effectiveness in practice", with reference to the realities of Ukraine being at war with russia.
This step comes in a sequence of agreements and deals signed between Baykar Makina, Ukraine and Turkiye, which started long before the russian all-out and continued after nonetheless.
Read more: Ukraine Carries on With the Plan to Launch Bayraktar Drones Manufacture on Its Territory
