Recently, during the Ukraine-Philippines Landscape forum, Ukraine's ambassador to the Philippines, Yuliia Fediv, stated that work is currently underway to sign a memorandum of understanding in the field of defense. Currently, the memorandum is planned to be signed in October, which will allow the creation of a legal basis and move forward.
The next step will be to launch joint production of drones in the Philippines. No further details about this joint production have been disclosed at this time, not even the types of drones that are planned to be produced or the terms and conditions of the cooperation.
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It is worth paying attention to the situation in the Philippines. It has a fairly small combat fleet, consisting of only a few large ships: two new Jose Rizal–class missile frigates and one former Korean Pohang-class corvette from the 1980s. The rest of the fleet consists mostly of used ships and boats for patrolling. This is particularly critical because the Philippines is an island nation, while China, its most likely adversary, currently possesses the world's largest fleet in number of ships.
In addition, China's navy is growing at a very rapid pace, so countering it is a top priority for the Philippines. It is worth paying attention to Ukraine, which, despite also having a small navy, was able to sink a large number of russian ships and force other to hide in bays.
It is widely recognized that this was achieved through the use of marine drones. That is why the Philippines is likely very interested in this topic. If it deploys a large enough fleet of inexpensive marine drones, it could pose a significant challenge to China.
That is why joint production will most likely involve maritime drones. Ukraine was chosen for this project because it has the most extensive and successful experience in the use of maritime drones in the world. In addition, Ukraine already has a number of solutions that have been tested in combat conditions.
It should be noted that joint production of surface drones is currently the most likely scenario. Therefore, it is worth considering other types of unmanned vehicles that could be manufactured there. These include FPV drones and long-range strike UAVs.
In particular, the manufacturing of FPV drones is unlikely to require the deployment of joint production. Regarding long-range UAVs, this option is realistic, given that very few countries have drones capable of enabling the Philippines to carry out deep strikes on China.
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