• A major Western drone firm says working in Ukraine is key to getting gear to the standard NATO needs.
• ORQA is partnering with Ukraine's industry to co-produce drone systems, including for the NATO market.
• Its CEO said Ukraine has battlefield experience and operational excellence that can shape gear for NATO.

A Western company developing drone technology for NATO militaries says that working in Ukraine is the best way to ensure its gear meets the alliance's needs for a future fight.

ORQA, a Croatian company that makes drones and drone technology, including controllers, receivers, goggles, video equipment, and flight simulators, already supplies parts and systems to two dozen NATO allies. But it wants to draw on Ukraine's battlefield experience to improve its products.

Working in Ukraine "creates an opportunity to really channel this sort of operational expertise to shape these products. And then these products can be made to a standard that NATO demands," CEO Srđan Kovačević told Business Insider.

ORQA produces components used by Ukrainian defense tech company General Cherry and is partnering with the firm to jointly make drone systems and spread Ukraine's drone expertise.

The war in Ukraine is the most intense drone war ever fought, and getting feedback from the battlefield provides critical insight into what soldiers need most.

"If I'm being blunt, there are only a few parts of the world where you can actively shoot down these unmanned aerial threats in a real-world environment," Kovačević told Business Insider.

That same drive has prompted Western defense companies, ranging from small start-ups to major primes, to set up manufacturing facilities, repair hubs, and offices in Ukraine, seeking battlefield feedback to improve their technology faster.

ORQA is also seeking to better understand how Ukraine's defense industry scales, moves quickly, and works in wartime.

Ukrainian defense firms are producing drones and other weapons at a much faster rate than many of their Western counterparts.

Kovačević said that "the West has a tremendous amount to learn from Ukraine," saying that the "operational excellence that Ukrainian defense forces have developed is unparalleled in the Western world."

He said that while the West "has a very deep technology expertise," it lacks "this lived experience of taking that technology and applying it to the operational reality of the 21st-century warfare."

"Now," he said, "it's time to merge the two and emerge better off on both sides of this partnership."

General Cherry is one of Ukraine's biggest drone companies and has announced partnerships with other Western defense tech companies.

ORQA and General Cherry intend to manufacture in both countries, supplying NATO and its allies with Ukrainian-developed counter-drone technology while expanding domestic production of drone components in Ukraine.

Kovačević said Ukrainian companies like General Cherry have "immensely valuable lived experience of building and scaling under fire," something that is often "neglected by Western companies," but they can learn.

The significant "volumes that Ukrainian drone companies are able to produce really dwarf anything that's happening in the West right now," he added.

Western leaders are encouraging industrial collaboration, and NATO has launched programs to bring Ukrainian and allied defense companies together.

ORQA isn't alone in looking to Ukraine's extensive battlefield experience to develop better weapons for NATO. Latvia-based Origin Robotics, for example, makes BLAZE interceptor drones purchased by several NATO militaries and BEAK, a drone-launched precision-guided weapon used by Ukrainian forces.

Its CEO, Agris Kipurs, previously told Business Insider that the company takes lessons from its work in Ukraine, "but we adapt those weapons systems specifically to be used in a NATO country. And NATO countries and the armies of NATO countries are our customers. That is the user we build for."

Kovačević said Ukrainian technology can't simply be transplanted into NATO militaries. Ukraine has had to develop weapons at breakneck speed and make do with what's available.

NATO, however, has time to take operational knowledge, contextualize it for alliance forces, and build these products to the necessary standards using Western technology, he said.

Kovačević said the goal of these industrial partnerships is to supply NATO without undermining Ukraine's ability to meet its own wartime needs.

ORQA also aims to boost Ukraine's domestic production of drone components and reduce its reliance on foreign suppliers.

Ukraine is "relying heavily on non-Ukrainian and non-European supply chains," Kovačević said, adding that reducing that dependence is strategically important. ORQA says it manufactures key components in-house and avoids Chinese-made parts to strengthen its supply chain.

Ukraine's Cabinet has opened the construction of underground arms production space to private investors, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi announced on 22 October, saying the rule applies from that day. A second decision eases imports for partner-funded weapons production.

Koretskyi said the change would add more of the space arms makers need, especially as Russian strikes intensify. On 9 December 2025, the Defense Ministry reported that more than UAH 1.5 billion (about $36 million) in budget support had let war-damaged defense firms restore operations. At the time, the ministry planned to relocate or duplicate the most critical plants, and underground complexes were under construction. The new model puts no additional burden on the state budget, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Hvozdiar said. The bill still lands somewhere, though. Defense firms will buy, lease, or take the space for use, and companies working on state contracts are among those eligible. If they pay developers out of state-contract revenue, part of the cost could come back to the budget.

Developers build, arms makers move in

The changes to Cabinet resolution No. 1494 give private investors a simplified route to construction and permits, the ministry said. Developers can build protected facilities with their own or raised funds. Deadlines, terms of use, and the handover are set in a contract between investor and defense firm. The mechanism covers new sites as well as moving or expanding existing production. If a firm gets only part of a facility, that part must be at least 25% of the facility's total area and fit for production.

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Developers must sign deals with, among others, residents of Defence City, Ukraine's special legal regime for arms makers, holders of state defense contracts, and firms the ministry designates as critical.

Tax break for partner-funded arms production

Components for weapons production that international partners pay for will enter Ukraine free of import duty and VAT, Koretskyi said. He added that customs inspection and clearance would be simplified and sharply shortened through a "single window."

• Palmer Luckey and Ben Lamm have partnered up for a new startup.
• Their startup, Warhound, aims to create a new league of highly capable military dogs.
• Warhound announced that it had $200 million in its seed round.

"Man's best friend deserves man's best tech."

That's what Palmer Luckey said about his new startup, Warhound. The Anduril cofounder, along with Colossal Biosciences cofounder Ben Lamm, raised $200 million in seed funding for the startup that aims to genetically engineer high-performance military dogs.

Warhound said in a Thursday press release that it wants to rebuild the US's supply of working dogs for military forces, law enforcement, and emergency first-response teams.

It added that most of the military dogs currently working in the US are acquired from Europe, and many are eventually deemed unfit for service.

Colossal Biosciences is a biotechnology company that uses gene-editing tools to protect endangered species and revive extinct ones. It will help produce healthier dogs suited to demanding missions, with Lamm telling TechCrunch that this involves enhancing the dogs' speed, agility, and ability to sniff out bombs.

Anduril's contribution to Warhound is the external hardware to keep the dogs and their handlers safe, such as eye and ear protection.

Warhound's $200 million seed round was backed by several VC firms, including In-Q-Tel, Sequoia Capital, ARK Invest, and Franklin Templeton.

Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, said in the release, "Palmer, Ben and the Warhound team are exceptional. Sequoia is proud to back them."

Warhound will be led by CEO David Spirk, a senior counselor at Palantir and a veteran of the US Marine Corps. He was also a former data officer for the Department of War.

The startup, based in Texas, has made commitments to animal welfare, saying in the release that it's certified by the American Humane Society, the US's first national animal welfare organization.

It said that improving the health and training success of the dogs will limit the number who enter unnecessary intensive training and enable safer missions.

• Russia looks to be moving toward 3D printed cruise missiles for its next era of air attacks on Ukraine.
• The threat could be so major, turbojet Shaheds would seem like a small problem, one drone guru said.
• GUR recently posted details of the Filin, a cheap Russian missile reported to fly as fast as 500 mph.

Russia's next big bet in the air war will likely move past jet-powered Shaheds to a deep arsenal of new cruise missiles, two of Ukraine's most prominent drone experts warned on Thursday.

Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov and Serhii Sternenko wrote separately on their Telegram channels about the Filin, an 11-foot Russian winged cruise missile that Ukraine's military intelligence service recently unveiled.

These cheap weapons possess superior capabilities that would easily overshadow the threat posed by the Shahed, according to the pair, both former drone advisors to Ukraine's defense ministry.

"The mass use of this type of aerial attack weapon is what awaits us very soon," wrote Sternenko, who runs a major foundation that crowdfunds for Ukraine's military, in a Telegram post.

"Then we will remember the jet Shaheds only as a small problem compared to this," he added.

Beskrestnov, a drone analyst, said he had "long predicted that our adversary is betting on cheap cruise missiles for the future, not on jet Shaheds."

He wrote on his Telegram channel that the Filin can fly faster, maneuver better, and carry a heavier payload than Russia's current turbojet drones,

"They do not need drone ports, many of them can be launched from helicopters and UAVs. And most importantly, they can be produced from Russian components," Beskrestnov added.

A strike at nearly 500 mph for cheap

On Wednesday, Ukraine's military intelligence agency, GUR, released extensive details on the Filin, which it said Russia had begun deploying at the end of summer 2026.

The Filin, it said, is the "continuation of the trend of the Russian military-industrial complex to develop inexpensive air attack weapons with jet propulsion and ground launch."

The ground-launched missile can carry a 100kg warhead, and Russia has said that it can fly at speeds of almost 500 mph at a range of 745 miles. By comparison, the Kremlin's most advanced jet-powered drone deployed so far, the Geran-5, is known to fly at a maximum speed of 370 mph.

The Filin can also fly at "ultra-low altitudes" and as high as 3.7 miles, GUR said.

Similar to Russia's Shahed drones, the Filin features a carbon and fiberglass fuselage, with some of its parts produced via 3D printing, the intelligence service added.

And as with turbojet Shaheds, GUR also said that the Filin is filled with foreign electronics in its flight controller, inertial navigation system, equipment control unit, and counter-jamming hardware.

The agency listed 35 components from the US, including transistors and converters; 22 from China; and 13 more from Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the Netherlands.

Notably, GUR said the Filin's engine is Russian-made, compared to the Chinese engines used on many of Moscow's turbojet drones. The same engine has been found on other recently unveiled Russian missiles, such as the air-launched Kover and Monochrome.

Much of Russia's ability to reduce the cost of its new cruise missiles is owed to its use of commercial engines and components. Another high-profile Russian missile that also uses civilian tech is the Banderol, which emerged in the spring of 2025 and has been straining Ukraine's air defense networks in the last few months.

The Banderol flies more slowly and has a shorter range than the Filin, but it still reaches a max speed of 435 mph, making it much harder for Ukraine to intercept with drones. Its estimated price is $150,000 per unit — about a sixteenth the cost of a traditional Kh-101 cruise missile — so it's easier to mass-produce.

The frequent use of weapons like the Banderol over the summer has led to fears that Russia will lean into its tactic, often nicknamed "missile spam," to keep pushing Ukrainian air defenses.

"What is the Air Force command doing now to build up countermeasures in advance?" Sternenko wrote on Wednesday about the missile threat.