By Miles Abroad, ODN International Correspondent
Map: Opelika Daily News, using Natural Earth boundaries. Job figures are company or government targets, not current headcounts.
Ukraine has become one of the world’s biggest builders of combat drones, and Russia knows where a lot of those factories are. So a growing number of Ukrainian drone makers are building their next production lines somewhere Russian missiles can’t easily reach, in Britain, Germany, Denmark, Romania and, more and more, the United States.
For the towns hosting those plants, the pitch is jobs. Add up the targets that companies and governments have announced for the biggest projects and you get close to 1,600 positions. But the jobs on the payroll today are a small fraction of that, and one of the biggest projects is stuck.
Why the factories are leaving
Inside Ukraine, drone companies have learned to hide. Many split their work across a dozen or more small sites, and some go underground, so that one strike can’t shut them down, Business Insider reported. That keeps them alive, but it is slow and expensive. Frontline Robotics, a Kyiv company, told the Wall Street Journal that one of its Ukrainian plants was hit by 14 Russian Shahed drones, DroneXL reported.
When drone maker General Cherry agreed in August to build drones in Finland with the Finnish defense company Patria, Ukrainian coverage said the move would help shield its production lines from “constant Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure” and give it access to European parts suppliers and NATO certification, Chas Pravdy reported. Kyiv has encouraged the move through a government program called Build with Ukraine, which pairs Ukrainian designers with foreign factories.
Fear of bombs isn’t the only reason. Ukrspecsystems, one of Ukraine’s biggest drone makers, said in July that “companies are moving assets abroad because there is a lack of funding within the country,” according to Militarnyi.
The job numbers, country by country
United States: at least 462 jobs promised. The biggest U.S. project is in Holland, Ohio, near Toledo. Ukrainian Defense Drones, the American company that represents Ukraine’s F-Drones, picked the village for its first U.S. assembly plant after landing its first Pentagon contract. The project will create “at least 300 new jobs,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and JobsOhio announced June 29, with the hiring stretching to the end of 2029, according to DroneXL.
The closest one to Alabama is in Fayetteville, N.C., next to Fort Bragg. Skyeton, which makes the Raybird reconnaissance drone, will turn a former Black+Decker plant into its first U.S. factory and create 162 jobs with an average salary of $70,759, North Carolina Commerce said July 27. That’s well above the Cumberland County average of $49,382, CBS 17 reported. The state is backing it with a $500,000 performance grant that only pays out if the jobs show up. The U.S. Army has since signed a $10.64 million contract for Raybird drones, Kyiv Post reported.
In New Hampshire, General Cherry is setting up a joint venture with Wilcox Industries in Newington to build attack and interceptor drones, but no job count has been announced. A broader U.S.-Ukraine “drone deal” that could open the door to more of these factories was reported to be close last week, but it had not been signed as of this writing, according to CBS News.
United Kingdom: up to 500 jobs, on paper. Ukrspecsystems opened a factory in Mildenhall, Suffolk, in February as part of a £200 million (about $270 million) investment. The British government said the investment “will create up to 500 British jobs at the sites and broader UK supply chain,” according to the UK Ministry of Defence. That number includes suppliers, not just factory workers. And five months after the ribbon-cutting, the company said the plant still wasn’t building anything. Ukraine’s own export regulators had turned down its request to send over the technology, and the British subsidiary was down to “a facility, workstations, and a few people,” the company told Ukrainian outlet Oboronka, as reported by Militarnyi.
Denmark: 300 to 400 jobs, starting in late 2027. Fire Point, the Ukrainian company that makes long-range drones and the Flamingo cruise missile, is building a plant in Vojens, near Skrydstrup Air Base. The site will make solid rocket fuel, not drones. Once production starts, the company plans to hire 300 to 400 workers, UNITED24 Media reported. The opening has slipped from the end of 2026 to the end of 2027 because the building needs thicker, reinforced walls. Denmark is also in talks with a second Ukrainian drone maker, Skyfall, Reuters reported.
Germany: about 60 now, 200 planned. Near Munich, Quantum Frontline Industries, a joint venture between Frontline Robotics and German drone maker Quantum Systems, started shipping German-built drones to Ukraine in March. It employed about five dozen people this spring, 80% of them Ukrainian and many of them war refugees, and it plans to have 200 on the payroll by the end of 2026, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. The goal is 10,000 drones a year.
Romania: about 30 to start. Ukrainian maker EDRONE and Romanian tech firm OVES Enterprise plan to start building drones in Cluj-Napoca this fall. The first team will be about 30 people making roughly 1,000 drones a month, with local workers trained on the production lines, The Diplomat Bucharest reported.
Everywhere else: deals, but no job numbers yet. Norway signed an agreement in April to build several thousand Ukrainian-designed “mid-strike” drones on Norwegian soil, the Norwegian government said. Latvia wants a joint drone plant in Latgale, one of its poorest regions, right on the Russian border. Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said the area needs investment and jobs, Defense News reported. Poland’s state defense group PGZ has signed a memorandum with TAF Industries, General Cherry and Patria have a letter of intent in Finland, the Netherlands has put up €248 million for joint production, and in the Czech city of Kolín, Ukrainian veterans are already building drones at the U&C factory, Czech Radio reported.
The catch
Moving a factory doesn’t make it invisible. After Britain agreed to share missile blueprints with Ukraine, a former Russian deputy foreign minister suggested on British media that Moscow was considering retaliation, and the Mildenhall plant has emerged as a possible target, Suffolk News reported. Most of the companies also keep their engineers, designs and final assembly in Ukraine, so the foreign plants tend to be smaller than the headlines suggest.
For now, the jobs that actually exist are counted in the dozens: about 60 in Bavaria, a “few people” in Suffolk, and a 30-person startup crew coming in Romania. The bigger numbers in Ohio, North Carolina, Denmark and Britain are promises, and some of them run to 2029.
Sources: UK Ministry of Defence, JobsOhio, North Carolina Department of Commerce, UNITED24 Media, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Militarnyi, The Diplomat Bucharest, Business Insider, Reuters, CBS News, Defense News, Norwegian government, Czech Radio. Written with AI assistance and reviewed by Opelika Daily News.
