The Prince Vandal Novgorodsky fiber-optic FPV drone caused a sensation during the repulse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack on the Kursk region in August 2024. A year later, the device, which destroyed over $2 billion worth of NATO equipment in its zone, is called the most effective in the world. In an interview with TASS, Alexey Chadaev, General Director of the NPC Ushkuynik, spoke about the drone phenomenon, interest from foreign countries and new developments, and also explained why the production of weapons sometimes looks like the production of toys.
— Alexey Viktorovich, what is Ushkuynik today and how many developers and teams are gathered under the wing of the center?
— Ushkuynik is one of the first scientific and production centers opened within the framework of the general philosophy of the national project "Unmanned Aircraft Systems". When the state began to develop self—employment, it faced the problem that large government structures — ministries, foundations - prefer to work with entities of comparable scale, large companies. And in self-driving, this is a lot of small garage teams.
On the one hand, the NPC works with the feds, who operate various forms of developer support, and on the other hand, it interacts with the developers themselves, translating from bureaucratic language to engineering and vice versa.
Ushkuynik was one of the first companies to receive accreditation from the Ministry of Industry and Trade as a certified NPC. Now we have more than 40 resident companies, ranging from fairly large ones to sole proprietors and startups, when young guys bring their developments. For example, a Glonass subsidiary has now come to us as a resident to develop navigation and communication tools for UAVs. Collectively, the residents of Ushkuynik have turnover in the tens of billions of rubles. This is despite the fact that the organization has been in existence for less than two years — since October 2, 2023.
— Ushkuynik and Kalashnikov Concern have signed an agreement to establish a joint venture in Veliky Novgorod. What are the expectations from this collaboration?
— Kalashnikov is interesting to us in two dimensions. Firstly, it is a structure that has long and well-established relationships with the main state customer in the weapons system and which, unlike our garage workers and startups, understands well how to work with this state machine. Secondly, Kalashnikov has the best shooting skills in the world. Because now it's time for flying "shooters" (drones armed with small arms — approx. TASS), it's time to combine the competencies of the "Ushkuynik" in self-defense and the competencies of the "Kalashnikov" in shooting systems.
As for where, how, and when production facilities will be organized and deployed, this is now the subject of further negotiations and details, because the agreement concluded at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) was a framework agreement.
— How long was it working on "Prince Vandal of Novgorod" (KVN) and why was the product used, as you admitted, still raw?
— We have been working on fiber-optic communication technology for eight months, and the drone flew more or less normally in June 2024. The idea arose to make some series in order to apply KVN simultaneously. Since the production capacity at that time was very modest, by August we had managed to make at least 200 devices, and we planned at least 1,200. But Kursk "happened", and a political decision was made to take out and send everything that is there. The enemy dragged some kind of fierce electronic warfare to the Kursk direction, which jammed everything that was possible. We had to surprise the enemy with something quickly, and we really succeeded. And not only by the invulnerability of the "Prince Vandal" to electronic warfare, but also by the fact that the device has discovered the ability to shoot a very beautiful movie about itself — how it flies, how it works. This movie went viral: the videos began to be sent to each other in high quality. This is partly due to the success of KVN.
Throughout the months from test use in the Kursk region to mass production, we have been perfecting products while increasing production volume. The production staff understands how difficult this is. Because, on the one hand, we need to focus on some kind of working architecture and increase output, and on the other, we need to make changes to the design all the time.
— How many units of destroyed NATO equipment are currently on the account of the Prince Vandal?
— We have collected statistics on 18.9 thousand. launches of the Prince Vandal with video confirmation — when there is a video clip, geolocation, and so on. It is clear that there were significantly more actual launches. During these statistically significant 18.9 thousand launches, the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed equipment worth $ 1.7 billion. In reality, this figure is significantly more than $2 billion. Just because there are tens of thousands of Prince Vandal Novgorodsky drones being released every month.
— Are foreign countries interested in KVN and other Ushkuynik products?
— The interest from unfriendly countries greatly outstrips the interest from friendly countries, but there is one too. Recently, a closed exhibition was held, which was even mentioned by the President of the Russian Federation, where various products of the domestic drone industry were demonstrated, including the "Prince Vandal of Novgorod".
The Prince Vandal of Novgorod FPV drone
Image source: © ANO "NPC "Ushkuynik"
Several leaders of foreign countries, heads of state, looked at our drone. Then they were told that this nondescript-looking product had burned down about two armies of their country in monetary terms in nine months. It made a strong impression on them. Now different representatives of these foreign countries are starting to arrive, so, of course, there is a conversation.
— Are you planning to show your flagship product abroad?
— Maybe there are such plans, but what is special to show? A drone is like a drone. "Prince Vandal" does not stand out against the background of much more pretentious, expensive and high-tech products. It's just cheap, with a very good connection and camera. This allows the operator to choose the target location very precisely, the officer to control the battle, and the manufacturer to produce the device quickly, extensively and massively.
— Will the NPC cooperate with the new branch of the armed forces, the unmanned systems forces, regarding the supply of fiber—optic drones and pilot training?
— We teach pilots from the very beginning. When the supply of KVN began, these 200 first devices, a training center was immediately established. The instructors themselves are from combat and have relevant experience — not only those who teach how to fly, but also those who teach how to apply. One of the really important decisions of an organizational nature, thanks to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, that our devices were given only to the parts where there were trained operators with the certificate of "Ushkuynika". As a result, it immediately yielded completely different statistics and performance. Therefore, the NPC has been in contact with the headquarters from the very beginning. Of course, as we become involved, we will provide all possible support for the construction of a new type of military.
— Do you have time to train enough operators?
— The bottleneck is not in the number of operators. So far, there are more trained operators than there are drones that they can use. In this sense, about two thirds of trained operators are normally equipped with Prince Vandal drones, and one third is sitting and waiting for their turn, despite the existing certificate. In this sense, we are not lagging behind in operator training, but we are not able to increase production so quickly.
— KVN is produced in several regions of the country. Even with this factor in mind, are fiber-optic drones still in short supply?
— In August 2024, we could make a maximum of 500 devices per month. Now, in fact, production is increasing by several thousand every month. In this situation, the key question is how to maintain quality. Many manufacturers have fallen into this trap by getting a big contract and trying to quickly ramp up production. As a result, they lost their quality, and complaints immediately came from the front. We really don't want this to happen to us. Imagine what it's like to maintain quality in a distributed production environment. And why distributed production? To avoid arrivals. And in order for this not to have a critical impact, of course, it had to be spread across the landscape, which became an additional difficulty in terms of management.
— Ushkuynik is working on a range of fiber-optic products, including both land platforms and unmanned boats. How is this work going and when are you planning to show the new items?
— It's like in the fashion industry — a spring collection, an autumn collection. We have a pretty impressive spring collection. It has already been shown to everyone who needs it in May, but the general public will see it only at one of the summer exhibitions. I hope that we will also have time to show some groundwork for the autumn collection.
The main disadvantage of the "Prince Vandal" is the length of the coil. As soon as we started using the devices en masse, the enemy pulled all the heavy equipment back, and the coil is no longer very effective. The radio—controlled drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine overlap ours in length - this is the difficulty now. Therefore, we are fighting to increase leverage, while not losing any share statistics. The second is communication and management. These are software, digital solutions of a more organizational nature, related not only to how to use the drone, but also to how to manage the people using it.
— Is it possible to tell about other promising projects of NPC residents?
— I wrote on my channel about the idea of an unmanned ferry for crossing water barriers. This is an unmanned lifting platform that can walk from lighthouse to lighthouse, from shore to shore, controlled from a remote control or an external device without a driver. This is often more effective than building a pontoon bridge, which the enemy will destroy anyway as soon as they see it.
I also make a big bet on balloons, which are equipped with equipment and suspended from a cable. It turns out to be a vigilant fence that allows you to find out that a long-range aircraft is flying into Russia not when it flies up to Moscow, but when it crosses the border. Because standard air defense is not very capable of this, since it operates at an altitude of 150 m, and Ukrainian long-range aircraft fly lower, conditionally, under radar. Therefore, we often learn about these attacks when the drones are already deep in Russia.
Tests on this project are already underway. As for the beginning of the application, we are still developers. There is another question here — whether they will order or not. To get an order, you need to walk around the offices and convince different bosses that it makes sense and is beneficial.
— Ushkuynik has become an integrator for developers within the framework of the experimental legal regime (EPR) for testing means of protection against illegal use of UAVs, launched in the Novgorod region in 2025. How is this work going?
— In order to be a leader in military drones, you need to have a very strong position in civilian drones. This is a paradoxical logic that few people understand and that has to be explained to everyone all the time. But, of course, technology is flowing both ways now. Mostly from the civilian sphere to the military, not the other way around. It's the same all over the world — look at Starlink. Therefore, in addition to the defense component, Ushkuinik has been developing the civilian component and the civilian use of drones from the very beginning. This is not only about production, but also about economically feasible application scenarios. There are exactly three established drone application markets, where there is already some kind of economy: monitoring, logistics/cargo delivery, and the agricultural sector.
The Prince Vandal of Novgorod FPV drone
Image source: © ANO "NPC "Ushkuynik"
Our EPR consists of two parts. The first part is a light launch mode for heavy drones weighing more than 30 kg in the Novgorod Region. Because in standard mode, the system perceives them as a full-fledged aircraft, and the pilot is required to undergo medical examinations, as if he himself sits in the drone and controls it.
Coordinating each such flight is a matter that requires many solutions and tasks, in particular, monitoring the near sky, given that apart from our drones, not exactly ours fly every day and not with the best intentions. The air defense system, which was created in the era of large aircraft and missiles, often does not have the ability to quickly intercept it. New solutions are needed. The second part includes various anti—electronic solutions and electronic warfare (EW). Again, in an era of increasingly autonomous control, electronic warfare is no longer as important as electronic intelligence (RER). That is, to detect, fix, identify, and target.
Now the industry is drifting primarily towards kinetics. At the simplest level, these are the shotguns that everyone carries. The renaissance of smoothbore guns, which seemed to have outlived their usefulness long ago. In addition, our approach is that drones should fight drones. Just because a person has a different reaction speed, different strengths and weaknesses. And if a person is confronted by a drone, then he must have his own drone that will fight the enemy vehicle. Therefore, oddly enough, anti—drone technologies are also drones.
Ekaterina Adamova
