About this episode
The episode discusses Ukraine's rapid drone manufacturing capabilities and its industrial dependencies amidst the ongoing conflict.
Ukrainian drone manufacturing. How has the country been able to build hundreds of thousands, even millions of drones over the past four years of conflict? What dependencies does its industrial base still have on China? And what lessons does its rapid scaling offer for the rest of the world? To discuss, we’re joined by Cat Buchatskiy, Director of Analytics at Snake Island, a military analytical group, along with Chris Miller Our conversation covers: How battlefield pressure forced Ukraine to build a drone war machine from scratch — from a handful of soldiers flying off-the-shelf drones to domestic assembly at a massive scale. Ukraine’s industrial legacy and whole-of-society mobilization repurposed its civilian tech sector into a wartime industrial base. Why modular design, frontline reassembly, and tight feedback loops allow Ukraine to iterate faster than traditional defense systems. The constraints of global supply chains, the impact of export controls, and how China is playing both sides of the war. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
People in this episode
Host: Jordan Schneider
Guests: Cat Buchatskiy, Chris Miller
Topics covered
- drone manufacturing
- Ukraine
- military technology
- industrial base
- global supply chains
- China
Keywords
- drones
- Ukraine
- military
- industrial base
- China
- supply chains
- technology
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Snake Island
Places: Ukraine, China
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