Russia starts grading its provinces on drone production, training

BERLIN – Russian provinces will henceforth be assigned a “dronification” score by the country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade in an effort to boost the development of unmanned aerial vehicles across all of Russia.

The score will be calculated based on ten criteria identified as crucial in successfully developing drone capabilities, including the availability of relevant infrastructure, access to dedicated financing, and the number of full-time drone operators working within the region.

Starting next year, participating in the scoring will be mandatory for all of Russia’s constituent parts except what the Kremlin calls the “new regions” – the unilaterally annexed parts of Ukraine. In its first iteration in 2025, a total of 47 regions participated. Ranked highest was the south-central Russian Republic of Bashkortostan, also known as Bashkiria.

A previous Defense News investigation revealed how drone makers in Bashkiria were benefiting from generous public contracts and pivoting from producing agricultural drones to loitering munitions for use in war.

Runners-up in this year’s ranking included the Samara, Sakhalin and Novgorod oblasts, as well as Ulyanovsk and Yamalo-Nenets. Moscow ranked ninth and Saint Petersburg came in twelfth, although it scored highest in the category of industry-relevant infrastructure, Russian media reported.

The initiative has been promoted by Russian Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Vasily Shpak as an explicitly civilian project, aiming, as he says, to help build a new sector of the economy based on unmanned aerial vehicles. He has said that the rating system, in addition to assessing regional readiness for the mass deployment of UAVs, should help shift public perception of drones away from their military associations and towards civilian applications.

Nonetheless, the technology is inherently dual-use, and raising capabilities for civilian drone production would also provide a significant boost to any potential non-peaceful applications . Existing Russian drone programs with officially civilian aims have, on several occasions, found military applications, including in Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine. This includes civilian drone makers selling their products for military use, all the way to government projects for training school children to build and operate drones.

In 2023, Russian authorities unveiled a program for the development of unmanned aviation in the Russian Federation by the end of the decade. The government is investing between 660 billion and 1 trillion Rubles ($8.2 billion to $12.4 billion) in the initiative, with additional funding streams and programs available for specific drone-related projects.

Linus Höller is Defense News' Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

柏林——俄罗斯工业和贸易部今后将对俄罗斯各省进行“无人机化”评分，以促进俄罗斯全国无人机的发展。

评分将根据十项被认为对成功发展无人机能力至关重要的标准来计算，包括相关基础设施的可用性、获得专项融资的途径以及该地区全职无人机操作员的数量。

从明年开始，除克里姆林宫所称的“新地区”（即单方面吞并的乌克兰部分地区）外，俄罗斯所有组成部分都必须参与评分。在2025年的首次评分中，共有47个地区参与。排名最高的是俄罗斯中南部的巴什科尔托斯坦共和国（又称巴什基尔共和国）。

《防务新闻》此前的一项调查揭露了巴什基尔的无人机制造商如何从慷慨的公共合同中获益，并从生产农业无人机转向生产用于战争的巡飞弹。

今年排名第二的地区包括萨马拉州、萨哈林州和诺夫哥罗德州，以及乌里扬诺夫斯克和亚马尔-涅涅茨共和国。莫斯科排名第九，圣彼得堡排名第十二，但据俄罗斯媒体报道，圣彼得堡在工业相关基础设施类别中得分最高。

俄罗斯工业和贸易部副部长瓦西里·什帕克大力推广这项计划，称其为一项明确的民用项目，旨在帮助建立一个基于无人机的新兴经济部门。他表示，该评级系统除了评估各地区大规模部署无人机的准备情况外，还有助于转变公众对无人机的认知，使其不再局限于军事用途，而是更多地关注民用应用。

然而，这项技术本身就具有军民两用性，提高民用无人机的生产能力也将极大地促进其在非和平用途上的应用。俄罗斯现有的无人机项目，虽然官方宣称其目标是民用，但已多次被用于军事用途，包括在莫斯科对乌克兰的侵略战争中。这涵盖了民用无人机制造商向军方出售产品，以及政府开展培训学生建造和操作无人机的项目等。

2023年，俄罗斯当局公布了一项计划，旨在到本十年末在俄罗斯联邦发展无人机技术。政府将为该计划投资6600亿至1万亿卢布（约合82亿至124亿美元），并为特定的无人机相关项目提供额外的资金来源和计划。

林努斯·霍勒是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者和开源情报调查员。他报道影响欧洲乃至全球的军火交易、制裁和地缘政治。他拥有大规模杀伤性武器不扩散、恐怖主义研究和国际关系三个硕士学位，并精通英语、德语、俄语和西班牙语四种语言。