Second, the increase in contracts did not occur “sharply” but within the plans approved by the Agency back in 2024. We would like to note that our first contracts with the DPA were signed at the end of November 2024, with extremely tight delivery deadlines. Most of the contracts being fulfilled in 2025 were approved and initiated under the previous DPA leadership in December 2024 – January 2025. According to our information, supply requests were sent at the end of 2024, but for reasons unknown to us, the previous DPA leadership did not manage to sign the relevant state contracts.

In general, the state’s demand for unmanned systems has been gradually increasing among all manufacturers over the past two years, as UAVs have proven their effectiveness on the battlefield due to their accuracy, speed, and relative low cost of use. The UAV market volume is growing rapidly, requiring manufacturers to make significant investments in material and technical resources, recruit new personnel, and strengthen operational processes. “General Chereshnya” itself is investing substantial resources in its own R&D center to ensure that Ukraine’s security and defense forces receive advanced technological products in a timely manner for effective use.

It is worth noting that the process of navigating the “bureaucratic hell” of concluding state contracts with the DPA was, and to some extent remains, quite complex. I wrote about this in my author’s column in September last year.

The main state drone procurer in 2024 was the State Special Communications Service of Ukraine (SSCS), while the Ministry of Defense’s Defense Procurement Agency procured relatively few “General Chereshnya” drones last year.

Overall, the FPV drone market is growing rapidly, and the needs of military units for various modifications are increasing exponentially. Year-on-year growth in supply volumes is occurring among all high-quality manufacturers whose products are in demand.

Among FPV drone manufacturers, we are not the largest in terms of volume, amounts, or revenue. Other manufacturers have significantly larger contracts within the DPA structure. However, we are confident that our company is earning its place in the market due to the following advantages:

Turbo mode: thanks to established processes and production capacity, we can manufacture tens of thousands of drones and deliver finished products within one month.
No delays: we have never had a single day of delay with any customer, including the DPA. Our SL (service level) is 100% – we have not violated the terms of any state contract. We fulfill all contracts on time without missing deadlines, including under state contracts.
Execution without advance payment: we undertake contracts without prepayment, at our own financial risk. This makes us a convenient and reliable counterparty for the state. Despite significant receivables owed to us by the DPA, we do not refuse contracts because we understand that the regularity of deliveries determines the ability of the Defense Forces to destroy the occupiers.

It should be noted that, both under the previous and current DPA leadership, we are approached with supply requests in critical cases – when a contract with another manufacturer has been terminated and the delivery deadline is up to 5 weeks. According to responsible DPA officials, all other manufacturers except “General Chereshnya” refused to fulfill orders under such conditions. We take on and deliver because this product is needed by the Defense Forces.

Please note that all drone manufacturing companies and the defense industry as a whole have been experiencing volume growth from 2022 to 2025. For other FPV drone manufacturers, the corresponding growth in delivery rates occurred in 2023 and 2024, so there is no significant disproportion between us and other manufacturers and there cannot be. Similarly, our biggest growth year was 2024, when we codified our first products and began signing state contracts. Due to the prolonged, artificially delayed codification of the first product, we did not make it in time for the first annual SSCS contracts in 2024. If codification had occurred by January 2024, supply volumes in 2024 and 2025 would have been comparable.

The increase in the number of contracts concluded is related to a significant growth in the overall volume of unmanned aerial vehicle procurements by the Agency: in the current year, from January to early July, the DPA contracted three times more UAVs than in the entire previous year. More than twice as many items were delivered during the same period.

We have confirmation of over a thousand strikes by our products on enemy positions, personnel, and equipment, as well as reconnaissance and combat UAVs.

We have also freely transferred thousands of drones to the best combat units with which we maintain constant feedback. According to the “Delta” system and performance analytics, our drones consistently rank in the top 10 among all strike drones (including Mavic, Nemesis, and Vampire) and top 5 in the “FPV drone” class by the number of successful strikes, and interceptors by the number of video-confirmed destructions of enemy UAVs. We are proud that servicemen independently mark strikes in Delta indicating our drone as the means used. The largest number of marks is from the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, which is a particular source of pride for us. There have been no warranty claims for our products, which once again confirms the high quality of “General Chereshnya” drones.
“General Chereshnya” has all the necessary design and technological documentation, a stock of components for manufacturing defense-purpose goods has been created, and it systematically recruits new employees, increases production capacity and space.

In addition, the activities of LLC “TsDBS” comply with ISO standards in the field of unmanned systems production, as evidenced by the following certificates.

Nevertheless, as many pilots as there are, so many opinions. Some operational difficulties with drones arise not for technical reasons but due to the imperfect mechanism of distributing military property after delivery to Separate Distribution Centers (ODC): drones end up from OTU or OUV not to the units that ordered them, or not when ordered, but with significant delay, affecting the possibility of operation (changes in frequencies, operating conditions day or night, etc.). We have repeatedly requested data on end users from military command authorities to maintain service at the proper level. This information is not provided to us because it constitutes a state secret. Despite this, we make extraordinary efforts to establish and maintain horizontal communication with units, independently and at our own expense replacing individual components (e.g., VTX) or adapting drones to the specific needs of units (changing frequencies). This is not warranty service but our own service approach, which is not paid for by the state. For business, these are expenses; for us, it is a contribution to victory.

Despite fulfilling the state order, we continue to conclude direct contracts with military units and supply special products (e.g., custom frequencies, cameras with rotating mechanisms, etc.) directly to end users.

No matter how many we supply under contracts, the need of crews is always greater. Therefore, we supply thousands of drones at the company’s expense. It is an honor for us to help servicemen perform their combat tasks.

Structural units of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the General Staff conduct regular testing of products and surveys of servicemen regarding drone quality. We have always successfully passed joint departmental tests, shown the best results in range, and surveys have confirmed the high quality of the product.

At the same time, on July 7 we launched the DOT-Chain Defence weapons marketplace – it will allow the military to order drones independently. Thus, military units themselves will choose which drones and in what quantity they need. We expect this to significantly improve the targeting of supplies and reduce drone delivery times to the front from months to a few weeks.

Ten brigades will participate in the pilot, with a budget of UAH 1 billion. At launch, only FPV drones will be available in the system. After the pilot is completed, we plan to add a wider range of drones, and later electronic warfare/electronic reconnaissance assets, ground robots, and drops for UAVs. Currently, over 80 manufacturers have submitted commercial proposals for the marketplace with more than 400 nomenclature items. At the start, drones from 15 manufacturers will be available in the system – within two weeks we will add most manufacturers, and by the end of the month all those who submitted proposals.

As stated in MoD Order No. 226, the procedure is as follows:

1. A military unit submits a request to the command of forces or branches of the armed forces, which summarize the requests and forward them to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine regarding the required armaments.

2. After processing, the General Staff of the ZSU, represented by the Main Logistics Directorate of the General Staff of the ZSU, forms a “need” for 3 years, which may be changed, supplemented, etc. during its implementation. Subsequently, the General Staff of the ZSU consults with the Logistics Forces Command of the ZSU (LFC) and approves the “need” with the signature of the Chief of the General Staff of the ZSU.

3. The Central Directorate of Defense Resources of the General Staff of the ZSU (CDDR GS ZSU), together with the Main Logistics Directorate of the General Staff of the ZSU, based on the approved need and within the planned financial resources, form proposals for the List with priorities for the procurement of defense-purpose goods, works, and services in the interests of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The formed “List” has two priority levels:
First – what is necessary and has funding;
Second – what is necessary and has no funding.

4. The proposals formed and signed by the Chief of the General Staff of the ZSU are then submitted to the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Armaments and Military Equipment Development of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

5. The Department studies the proposals for the List, approves them, and forwards them for signature to the relevant Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine.

6. The List is communicated (sent) to the Department of Procurement Policy of the MoD and the General Staff of the ZSU. The Department of Procurement Policy of the MoD (recently the Procurement Department of the MoD) reports on further implementation of the List by state customer services: DPA, SSCS, etc.

7. The DPA receives a contracting request and submits it to the Military Representation of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to verify the capabilities and quality of production, including our drones. Once agreed, the contract is signed.

Thus, the DPA leadership cannot influence a company’s appearance on the “List.” The contract is only the final step after multilevel approval that begins at the level of military units.

This question is extremely manipulative and outrageous. We cannot comment on the work of Andriy and Stanislav at DOT for ethical reasons. At the same time, we are forced to note that neither Andriy nor Stanislav were involved in any management decisions, did not know and could not have known that DOT would in any form make management decisions regarding UAV procurement in the future.

Regarding the mentioned persons.

Stanislav Hryshyn did not provide legal services to Arsen Zhumadilov but provided professional legal assistance to DOT until May 2024. Due to attorney-client privilege, he cannot provide comments on this work. As noted above, he could not physically have been involved in the state order in the UAV sector, as he did not know and could not have known that the head of DOT would later be appointed to a corresponding position at the DPA.

Andriy Lavrenovych was Director of Organizational Development and Head of the Personnel Management Department. Both at DOT and in our company, Andriy deals exclusively with personnel matters. As he noted, he had no access to or influence on the procurement planning process while working at the state enterprise of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine “State Rear Operator” (DOT) and was even less involved in decision-making regarding drone procurement, as DOT does not handle this. The conclusion of state contracts between the DPA and “General Chereshnya” began already in November 2024. Andriy Lavrenovych began working at General Chereshnya on January 22, 2025, after the conclusion and fulfillment of the company’s first state contracts.

We are grateful to Arsen Zhumadilov for his professionalism and integrity; we believe that the public sector, responsible journalists, and business should support him in this position given his proven zero tolerance for corruption. As a business, no one – neither under the previous leadership nor now – has demanded any unlawful benefit in any form. We are also grateful to Maryna Bezrukova for her contribution to state procurement in the UAV sector. She was the first in the MoD to begin procuring FPV. We emphasize that our first contracts were concluded precisely by her within the need and supply volumes existing at that time. It was during her tenure that the request for FPV drone supply for 2025 was formed and sent, which is the subject of this comment. Regarding this request, the state contract should have been concluded already in 2024, but for technical reasons it was concluded only in 2025.

We emphasize that the thesis “Stanislav Hryshyn and Andriy Lavrenovych as former DOT employees influence contracts with the DPA” is a manipulative accusation at the level of Telegram channels like “Joker.” Everyone who has gone through the state contracting process knows that such influence is generally impossible given the large number of military command bodies. Moreover, at the request of Andriy and Stanislav, they do not engage in working communication with responsible DPA officials to eliminate discomfort both on their part and on the part of the state customer.

Despite the acute personnel shortage at the DPA and DOT, the agencies operate within their authority and perform the tasks defined by law.

It is also important to note that Stanislav Hryshyn was not Arsen Zhumadilov’s personal lawyer but defended the interests of DOT as a State Enterprise.

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