During the exhibition in Saudi Arabia **, the CEO of Bayraktar Haluk Bayraktar said in an interview that the construction of a plant for the production of Turkish drones has begun near Kiev, Ukraine. He also revealed that the plant will take about 12 months to build, after which equipment will be delivered, adjusted and other work scheduled. The drone manufacturing plant in Ukraine is expected to be large, employing around 500 people for production. Once operational, the plant will be able to produce around 120 drones per year, either in TB2 or TB3 models. Bayraktar intends to invest about $100 million in the construction of a drone factory, a maintenance service center, as well as the company's headquarters in Ukraine.
Regarding Bayraktar's move, Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the move would only prolong the suffering of Ukrainians and would not prevent Moscow from achieving all the goals of the Northern Military District. There is a military specialty**, and this Ukrainian drone production plant may become a legitimate target for Russia.
Why did Turkey choose to cooperate with Ukraine and build a Bayraktar drone plant on its territory? Isn't Turkey afraid of causing discontent in Russia? Turkish political scientist Togrul Ismail said that the agreement between Turkey and Ukraine for the joint construction of a drone plant has been in place for several years. Turkey chose Ukraine as a partner solely because Ukraine has a well-established production capacity for drone motors, and Turkey has previously been buying various Ukrainian engines for its industry, including the army.
Russia, on the other hand, is very calm about Turkey's military cooperation with Ukraine, and does not want to exaggerate the situation with Turkish drones. There may be two reasons for this. First of all, Russia and Turkey are launching a number of economic cooperation projects and do not want to complicate relations with each other; Secondly, the Russian leadership has questioned the true combat effectiveness of Turkish drones, believing that their performance does not pose a real threat to Russia, and that Russia will not consider a devastating strike on the plant unless this threat is amplified.
And Ukraine thinks very differently from Russia. Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Ukrainian army has achieved good results in the use of Turkish drones. According to relevant reports, Ukraine's use of Bayraktar TB2 drones has successfully destroyed a variety of Russian military equipment and other ** platforms, including the well-known 220mm BM-27 "Uragan" multiple launch rocket system, Ka-52 "Alligator" attack, etc.
It is conceivable that the Turkish drone is still a certain threat, and the Russian army cannot be completely taken lightly. The Bayraktar TB1945 is a tactical drone that fires missiles to destroy tanks and artillery and is designed for precision strikes, intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, as reported by Military **2. From the perspective of combat performance, the TB2 UAV has a combat altitude of 5,500 meters, a maximum flight altitude of 8,200 meters, a maximum speed of 220 kilometers and an hourly cruising speed of 130 kilometers and a battery life of 27 hours.
According to incomplete statistics, Bayraktar TB2 has destroyed almost 900 military targets in all the conflicts in which it participated. Of course, this drone also has some shortcomings, such as its flight speed is not fast, and it can easily be locked and hit down in the face of a portable missile similar to the Stinger.