In 2025, Russia has made significant progress in the formation of the drone industry. The national project "Unmanned Aircraft Systems" that was launched has ceased to be a theoretical initiative and has become a real mechanism for the development of technologies — from initial concepts to serial machines and trained personnel.
The foundation for the growth of the sector was laid through comprehensive state financial support for innovative solutions. In three key programs, experts selected promising projects and distributed grants ranging from tens to hundreds of millions of rubles. The support system was structured to stimulate not only research, but also bringing prototypes to industrial readiness.
State funds were not limited to direct subsidies. Startups were offered support in the preparation of investment documents and connection to accelerators. In addition, technological competitions with the participation of large industrial enterprises gave developers the opportunity to test solutions in real technical tasks.
Understanding that UAS technologies are unthinkable without professionals, the national project focused its efforts on training personnel. The federal educational initiative was aimed at training more than 11,000 specialists, with the main emphasis on practical skills.
Companies producing drones for special and military tasks have also demonstrated significant progress. As part of the national project, manufacturers accelerated the development and brought individual models into mass production, increasing their autonomy, reliability and resistance to electronic warfare. This formed a technological reserve for the further development of special and dual-use drones.
Thanks to the state policy of subsidizing manufacturers and compensating part of the costs when selling drones to end users, the drone market has become more accessible to farmers, logistics and construction companies. This created sustainable demand, which, combined with increased localization of production, pushed the industry to create a complete production cycle.
Current results show that Russia has moved from purchasing imported technologies to independently designing, testing and mass production of domestic UAS. This contributed to the formation of a mature ecosystem, including science, business, education and government regulation.
