crosspostato da: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/4050999

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The Chinese state-sponsored DJI, by some counts, has 75% of the global drone market cornered. Even manufacturers who make their own drones depend on Chinese makers in general and DJI in particular for mass supplies of components. It’s a trend that stretches from San Diego to Donbas, sparking fears of Chinese control over military supply chains.

Spurred by war, Ukraine is producing more drones domestically than any country in the world outside of China and possibly Russia. The focus on making components en masse is a more recent phenomenon.

“There didn’t used to be domestic producers, and nobody was thinking about them,” Oleksiy Grebin, CEO of Motor-G, Ukraine’s largest producer of electric motors for drones, told the Kyiv Independent, showing off the firm’s new factory floor, where machines tick, spin, and rattle in every direction. In the furthest corner, winding machines pull copper wire from a dozen spools and wrap it around the central racks that are the core of the motors.

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The increasing industrialization of component firms like Motor-G and its survival despite massive Russian air raids is consequently of major importance not only to Ukraine, but also to its allies who are struggling to industrialize.

Grebin anticipates demand from Europe sustaining the firm even in the event of some sort of peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

“I think the Europeans will buy more, everyone will need at least some, though maybe not these quantities.”