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A Ukrainian defense manufacturer has suggested protecting drone production by using civilian sites, including school workshops
A Ukrainian defense manufacturer has suggested dispersing military production across civilian sites, including to school facilities, to protect its weapons-making operations from Russian strikes. Aleksey Polonchuk proposed that students assemble drones in school workshops as part of a decentralized production strategy.
Polonchuk, who owns a small defense company specializing in electronic warfare equipment, made his remarks in an interview with Dignitas Fund, a nonprofit focused on raising funds for Kiev’s military. The interview was published on the NGO’s YouTube channel on Wednesday.
To safeguard drone production from Russian long-range attacks, Polonchuk emphasized the need to scatter manufacturing locations across the country.
“Production should be distributed across the country, hidden in basements–and thus scaled up. Assemble FPV drones of approved designs during labor lessons in schools. The whole country assembles what works, what is approved,” he stated.
According to Polonchuk, this decentralized approach would protect drone manufacturing from detection and destruction. He warned that large-scale production sites are vulnerable because “if you build a workshop where 60 drones are simultaneously produced, it will quickly be hit.”
The remarks come just days after unverified images emerged online showing what appeared to be a decentralized drone assembly site in Kiev. The photos showed stacks of FPV drones hidden inside Domino’s pizza boxes to facilitate covert transportation between production locations.
Hiding military assets and defense production sites has been a common practice in Ukraine during the conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian military has repeatedly stashed its hardware at shopping malls, accommodated personnel in schools and kindergartens, and used civilian ambulances to transfer troops. Should the military activity get discovered and the installation targeted by Russian forces, the Ukrainian media commonly portrays these incidents as indiscriminate strikes on civilian locations.
Additionally, there have been multiple reports of Ukraine using private shipping services, such as Nova Poshta, to covertly transport military equipment in unmarked civilian vehicles, with the practice corroborated by multiple videos and images circulating online. Several distribution centers of the company have been destroyed during the conflict, with Ukrainian sources omitting the military use of these sites in official statements.
