From 10 Drones a Month to Nearly 100,000 — Inside Ukraine's Largest Drone Manufacturer | Marko Kushnir, General Cherry

Inside General Cherry

0:00If we will have some kind of fully autonomic systems, it will be very scary because you don't need other human to kill the human, so it's very scary because you just need a robot, you just need a drone. You started manufacturing in 2023. Today is the majority of drones on the battlefield. Are they manufactured in Ukraine? And where are you in that group of manufacturers? I think that Ukraine is better in constructing something new, something new technologies, but Russia, of course, is better than us in scaling of these technologies.

0:34Drones is not only about targeting. We understand drones and know how to operate it, and we know how to destroy it, so we are opening different collaborations in different ways. Introduce yourself and explain the company you work for and the drone you produce and how important it is in the current battle with Russia. My name is Marko. I'm the director of communications of one of the biggest drone producers in Ukraine, our company called General Cherry.

1:11We produce different types of drones. We have different products, like from ordinary Kamikaze FPV from 7 to 15 inches. 7 to 15 inches. Inches, yeah. And we, but of course, we have a flagrant products, flagship products, products like interceptors. So here's one of our flagship, this interceptor General Cherry Bullet. It's a strategic interceptor for anti-Shakhet work.

1:43So we destroy the Russian Shakhet or so-called Geran. Geran is drawn by this drone. But we have different types of interceptors. We have tactical interceptors. It's like General Cherry Air. It's an interceptor for different drones who work on Frontline, like ZALA, Orwans, Lansets, Mounia and other Russian drones. And of course, we make drones on fiber optics. And we have different types of fiber optics from 10 kilometers to 40 kilometers distance.

2:2440 kilometer. Yeah. Yeah. And we think that we can make more than 40 kilometers and we will make it. So because our modern Frontline, not Frontline, of course, it's now we call it Killzone. You should know about it. So we haven't any Frontline and we haven't any Great Zone in our Movor. We have only Killzone. It's like different parts of Frontline. This Killzone can be from one kilometer to 20 kilometers.

2:58So it's an area where only drones rule everything. So you can use your vehicles. You can use any type of big cars or any type of armored vehicles. You can use only your feet if you will be lucky. Or you can use different unmanned systems. Air unmanned systems, ground unmanned systems. So, and of course, this is a zone of big work of reps and different potent technologies. And that's the answer to the question why we really need different drones on fiber optics. So we have it too.

3:46Our company was made in 2023. We started from 10 drones per month. And now we produce more than, I can give you the correct number because it's not security information, but we made thousands, 10 of thousands drones per month. Nearby 100,000 drones per month.

The Meaning of Cherry

4:14Okay. Let me just unpack some of that. So it's General Cherry is the name of the drone. General Cherry is the name of the company. The company and also the family of drones. Also the family of drones, yeah. Cherry, you were telling me it's a symbol because the town that... Yeah, it's a symbol. Originally, our company came from Zaporizia region. It's a symbol. It's Central South part of Ukraine. And the region has different symbols. And one of the symbols of Zaporizia is a cherry gardens, different cherry gardens. So for us, for us, it's very important story because we want to remember about ours.

5:04Sure. And we want to remember about one of the biggest cities of the Parisian region, the city of Melitopol. The cherry is a general symbol of the city of Melitopol. And the city of Melitopol is now... It's a temporary occupied territory. So we want to remember that we came from the Svens. And of course, we will come back to the Svens.

Manufacturing in Ukraine

5:30How many drone companies are there now, manufacturers in Ukraine? And what percentage of the drones on the battlefield? I mean, originally they were Mavic, they were DJI. And you said you started manufacturing in 2023. Yeah. Today is the majority of drones on the battlefield. Are they manufactured in Ukraine? And where are you in that group of manufacturers?

6:00Yeah. I think hundreds of companies. I don't know the correct number, but I think that it's maybe hundreds or thousands different drone companies in Ukraine. Oh, really? And I can tell you only about the air drones. I don't know the situation on the ground system or the water system, but in the air drones, we have maybe hundreds and hundreds of companies in Ukraine. Of course, we have maybe 10, 15 big companies who can produce more than 10,000 drones per month. But I don't know how many garage factories we have in different garage and in different small rooms.

6:51And these guys can make the drones too. So 1,000 companies maybe. And where do you stand in that? Different locations. No, but are you the largest or a middle? We are maybe in the top five in general.

R&D and AI Targeting

7:10In 2023, I would imagine if you're building them yourselves, very simple drones, you now have AI connected or AI powered and also the fiber optic drones. Is this, are you using off the shelf technology? Who's producing the navigation systems? Who's producing the fiber optic? Is that stuff you buy off the shelf?

7:40And most importantly, where are you getting the AI models? And what are you using them for? Just our own development, because we have very strong and big R&D department. And we try to make every technology by our own power. So every technology that we have, every technology that we use, the technology that's made by us.

8:10But with very close and very deep collaboration with our militaries from different units, from different regimes. So it's always about collaboration with our military because we make products for these units. Yeah. And we, of course, we need this feedback. Of course, we need this understanding of a front-end situation.

8:40And of course, we should know what works better, what works worse. So everyone that we met, we made by our R&D. And of course, by our, not only, not only about hard technologies. And it's about the soft technologies too, like AI targeting. But we always made it, made it only with military units. So it's very important part of our work.

9:10Because we, of course, in Ukraine, we have very easy access to the battle proof status. And we can test every, our product like every day. And it's very easy to us to do it. And so we have different mobile groups who came to our military in different parts of the front every day. And we take this feedback and we know that what we should do next.

9:40Not only like for, for weekends or for months, we can see in like near the future. And we, we can understand what we need. The next step in this technology war and what we should do. And what, what the product should be next. Because our soldiers give us this information. Yeah. And when did you develop this form factor? I mean, as a rocket shape, as opposed to a flat quadcopter.

10:15It's, it's not a, it's not a, not a general Ukrainian technologies, this form factor. Because I saw the information that first it was like a sport type FPV from Red Bull. And they launched it maybe in 2021 or 2022. You can check this information later. So it's, so the Red Bull team, sorry Red Bull, was first one who makes this form factor.

10:48And after different Ukrainian companies and our two saw that it's working. Because this form factor can reach higher speeds than ordinary quadcopter, ordinary FPV drone. And we understand that it's working. And we try, find different form factors. But we, now we think that this one is the best one for us. Yeah. And so it, it, I mean, I'll, I'll. It starts like ordinary FPV, comes after start.

11:20They put down like, like a rocket and we fly like, like a literal rocket. I see. Yeah. Like a cruise missile. Cruise missile. And is the payload or the, or the warhead inside the rocket? It's not, I mean this. Yeah, inside here. Right. So it's a kamikaze drone. Yeah. It's not a release. Do you, is this the, the most common product or do you also make the drones that release munitions?

11:52We have a project, uh, with, uh, like so-called middle bomber, uh, because it's very important for our military to, uh, when you can come with this drone and, um, make some mining or make some goods. Uh, uh, I don't remember. Uh, not delivery, like delivery of mine on the, on the Russian, Russian heads. Yeah. Uh, we have the project, but we, uh, now it's like in deeply producing stage.

12:25So it's not, uh, uh, it's not, uh, not, uh, not yet released. Right. Uh, but 90, 90% of our drones is kamikaze drones. Right. And so you're producing tens of thousands. If not a hundred thousand a month. Nearby one. I think that near be, uh, 100,000 per month. Once again, I can give you the correct number. Uh, but, uh, it's, it's a big amount. And we know that our, we have capabilities to make more than 100,000 per month because we have these capabilities.

13:01Yeah. And what is the, the demand? I mean, how many are, are you, is, are the most common? Are the military units consuming a hundred thousand a month? So, uh, we, we working with more than 110 military brigads. Yeah. It's like, uh, I think 300 units. Uh, and of course they, they use more than 100 drones per month.

13:31Uh, I, I don't know the correct number, but I think that's, uh, one of the, uh, one of our best units can use more than 5,000 drones per month easily. And that's because missed targets or missed malfunctions or? Different, different reasons, different reasons. Human factor, weather factors, uh, spoofing, uh, not likely, uh, different reasons. Different reasons. Yeah. So, and that was, I mean, getting to the AI part, uh, is the AI that you're using, what model are you using?

14:11How do you communicate with the drone? Is it, uh, for navigation? Is it for stability? Is it for, uh, uh, well, I'm not sure what else it would be for, but yeah. Uh, I should tell that it's, for me, it's like, uh, one of the first steps of, uh, AI integration processing in, uh, drones. Because our AI technology, it's like, uh, uh, I should tell that it's like half autonomous.

14:44So, uh, of course you need the operator, of course you need, uh, of course you need to control the drone, uh, in the fly. But, uh, when you detect the, uh, AI target, like a shacket, our drone can, um, can understand that it's a shacket. And, uh, our drone, it can, uh, can control itself and, and, uh, can go to this shacket without any operator, uh, control.

15:14And, uh, it's like, uh, it's, it's a good one. It's first steps, but it's not about fully autonomic, autonomical system. It's not about some kind of, uh, great worm, uh, great, great wall of swarm technology, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because, to tell the truth, we saw that nobody in this world, uh, for now, have a good AI technology in drones. Because it's very, very hard technologies. And we don't know how it will be worked in, on the battlefield.

15:45And we don't know how it will be worked, uh, on the ground, too. So it's very hard. But we have some kind of half AI. Uh, our AI model can, it can detect the drone, uh, can, uh, can, uh, can aim this drone. And you don't need to, uh, you shouldn't do more if you're a pilot. So you can only detect and, uh, and you, uh, can, uh, fly to this drone on cruise control and shut down.

16:15Okay.

Interceptors Against Shakhets

16:16And you were talking about the, uh, uh, drones that the Russians are using. Can you explain what that drone is? Is that the primary attack from, from the Russians? Yeah. So once again, we have two different types of interceptors. This one is this interceptor drone for Russian Shakhets. Shakhets or Geran, uh, uh, it's, uh, originally Iranian drone.

16:46Um, but now Russian produce thousands and thousands of drones in Russia. So it's like a big, uh, deep strike drone. Uh, uh, cause like maybe different type can because different, but it costs from, uh, 50,000 to 100, 100 and more thousand dollars. So it's big, big kamikaze drone, big deep strike drone, who came to, uh, and it's, uh, who came to,

17:17who, and Russian use it for, uh, different terrorist attack to our cities. It's not like frontline drone, because they keep, uh, other drone from frontline. It's only drone for, uh, deep strikes for, to, for our cities. They use Shakhets for different reasons, because by Shakhets, they can, uh, overdose our, uh, air defense system. Uh, we, uh, we, we should use very high price rockets from different Western air defense system for the Shakhets.

17:53And it's not okay for us. So we find the solution. We find the solutions that we can make small, faster, and very dangerous, uh, interceptor drone, uh, who, this drone costs like $2,000. And you can destroy this big deep strike machine with this little drone. I should have made that clear at the beginning. These are primarily anti-drone, counter-drone, uh, uh, weapons.

18:28They're intended to attack other drones. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are they also for attacking, are they also anti-personnel? It's, it's not for the personnels. Of course, it's not for the personnels. It's like a drone with a drone. Firstly, you know, maybe you can kill somebody from this drone too. If you will have some kind of, uh, uh, half a kill of C4. Here, of course, you can kill somebody, but it's, it's, it's not, uh, it's not the general goal of this drone.

18:58So, yeah, the general goal is to destroy, uh, Russian drones. All of the drones in your line are anti-drone drones? No, no, no. We, we have just ordinary FPV of Kamigadze. And this ordinary FPV and fiber optic FPV, of course, used by, uh, different, uh, for, for different targets. Like persons, vehicles, uh, artillery, and other, other, other. So we, uh, we have products for, maybe for every target on the battlefield.

19:36Yeah. I mean, you were saying earlier that, that there's no longer a clear front line. Yeah. That there's a, a kill zone. So you were saying that there's no longer a clear front line, that, that because of the drones, it's broadened into a zone, a kill zone. Yeah. And, uh, within that kill zone, uh, there are drones on the other side that are hunting, uh, men or soldiers, uh, in that zone.

20:06Yeah. So are the lines, is that why the lines are fairly fixed? Because it's very difficult to advance because of the, the drones? It's not, of course, it's not about some kind of fixed line. So it's like, uh, I think that it's, well, it's about like different, different, different, so many, many little zones with, uh, and it can be like a, for one kilometer. And it can be like for 20 kilometers. So it's, uh, uh, it's a one big kill zone who consists from different little zones with different, uh, different, uh, tactical and operational situation in this zone.

20:47So, uh, and this zone can, consists only from personals in, uh, tranches and some kind of small tranches and a lot of, a lot of different drones, air drones, ground drones. So it's like a kingdom of different drones. Drones, yeah. Drones, yeah. And so this, the interceptor, when did you start manufacturing interceptors? Because in 2023, you were manufacturing. Yeah. So our tactical interceptor General Cherry Ear first was produced, uh, well, massively produced.

21:22Yeah. Uh, in February, 2025, and since February, 2025, we, uh, have more than 5,000 confirmed, uh, Russian drone, uh, drone strikes. So more than 5,000 is very big number. So only in December, we, uh, shut down more than 1,000 Russians, Monias, only one type of drone. I think you, you know, about the ammonia drones, uh, it's very, very cheap, very dangerous Russian drones.

21:55And we shut down more than 1,000, uh, by our tactical interceptor General Cherry Ear. So this one, uh, we start produced in October, 2025, uh, mass, massively we start produced it's maybe in December, 2025. And now we have more than, um, tens of tens, uh, confirmed shaket strikes.

22:25I don't know, maybe, maybe near be this confirmed shaket strike, maybe more, maybe, maybe near be 100. I don't wanna, don't wanna tell you the correct number. Yeah. But it's worked, it's worked and it's worked well. Okay. And so you have, uh, AI for the, the targeting. Yeah. When, when you launch this, I mean, how do you, how do you know what direction to, to send it?

22:56I mean, how do you know there's, uh, an incoming drone? Well, it's like, complex work with, uh, radars, with, uh, different, uh, different, uh, different radars, different systems. That's our military knows that, oh, we know that, uh, we have, um, three shakets in our sector. We see it on radars, we know that these shakets came to us close. So you launch, launch this drone, you need like 30 seconds to launch it. Take it and launch it. And after this, you, um, for, for, by us, you try, you should find this drone with rudder, with your, uh, uh, with your rudder and understand that, oh, I see it.

23:37And after, after this, you can, uh, use AI targeting. Okay. So you're, you're watching the radar. You know, there are three of these drones in your sector. You launch this in the general direction of those drones. Yep. And then, uh, there's a signal sent that, or is the, is the AI, uh, in the cloud and, and, uh, communicating. with the drone, or is it on device?

24:09On device. It's on the device. Yes, on device. And it's a small model on a chip. Yes. Little, just little model, uh, in our cameras. So you can, it's like on, on device, little process. Right. And is there a camera in this? And, and yeah, yeah, you can, you can see that it's, it's camera. I see. Yeah. Maybe pointed at the camera there. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, and the, uh, and once the AI targeting, what do you call that model?

24:50Does it have a name? It's just our own, so I don't wanna tell it. Your, your own? It's our own software. Software. It's our own software. And I don't think that I should tell some. Okay. But you developed it or you buy it from overseas? Uh, firstly, we, uh, we both like, uh, we buy like a small team who start to make this soft, uh, uh, software.

25:23And we, uh, we bought it. And we, uh, we, uh, give them, of course, money, support, technologies for very fast scaling. And now it's like a part of our R&D, uh, R&D team. Okay. Okay. And, and so you send a signal to turn on the AI. The model is on the drone and it takes over navigation. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, uh, what's the, the metric to measure accuracy?

25:55Is it 90% accurate, 50% accurate, 20% accurate? Depends. Depends the different situation. Uh, it's, I think that's, it's more than 70% for now. It's 70, 80% of, uh, of workers. We'll, we'll find their target. Yeah. And it's carrying a warhead that's strong enough to destroy. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. You just need like, uh, 400 grams of, uh, exposure and you can destroy the shacket.

26:26And what kind of explosive? Is it C4 or? Uh, it's, depends on the situation what you have. Yeah. But it's manufactured with the, with the charge in it. No, no, no, no. We, we just met on the drones. Maybe somebody want to use it on the wedding. I don't know. We, we don't produce, uh, with the weapon. I see. So, so when you ship it to the military. Yeah. They pop the, can you pop the top off that?

26:58Uh, because it's, we need to say, so because it's fully, fully, fully constructs. And it takes the full, full construct, but it's very easy. You just need to, uh, take off. You, you put the charge in. Yeah. And the trigger is already there or, or. Yeah. Yeah. You can, like, for kinetic power. And the water is the first one. And the, uh, like a button on your controller. Yeah.

27:28You can, you can choose what, what you, what you want. How has the addition of AI changed, uh, drone warfare? Very scary in question. That is a true. Very scary in question. Because if we will have some kind of fully autonomic systems, it will be very scary. Because you don't need other human to kill the human. So it's very scary.

27:58Because you just need a, uh, robot. You just need a drone. And if it will be fully automatic. Nope. Okay. If it will be like a semi-automatic, like in our, uh, interceptors, it will be crazy. But for now, uh, uh, it's, uh, for now, why we don't use the semi-automatic? The semi-automatic AI in our ordinary FPV drones. Because, uh, it's, it gives us more high price for the drones.

28:28You don't need it. If you can, for our military battery, if you can buy like a five ordinary FPV without AI, it will be better than you can buy one FPV, but with AI. But we'll see. Because we were talking about the technologies. And I think that the technologies will be, uh, uh, very, we will see very fast scaling of these technologies. And we will see that the price will be lower, lower, lower and lower. And it will be very, very scary for everybody.

28:59Very scary. Yeah. Yeah. So we will see. But I think that for us, the general point is the most important point for us now is to make the fully, a, a fully autonomous interceptor system. So, uh, when you can take this, this drone, some kind of box, uh, go carry it on the board, or maybe some on the deep ground and just use it only one for one button.

29:30So it's, it will be great for us. We will see. But I don't want to think about the AI technologies in a, in the ordinary battlefield, because it will be very, very bad for both sides. Of course, we want to, that, uh, uh, the best set for our enemies. But we know that we take some technologies from enemies. Techno enemies takes technologies from us. So if we will have this technology, they will, they will have this technologies maybe

30:03in a week or two. Yeah.

Asymmetric Warfare and Scaling

30:05Well, that was one of the questions and about this widening kill zone, uh, and the blurring of the frontline as these weapons become more effective and, and, and can operate at a greater distance. Um, are you seeing, uh, the Russians keep up with the technology, uh, as fast as, as you? And, and do they have, uh, interceptor drones that are as effective?

30:36I think that, uh, we should, uh, we should talk about two different systems, two different types of understanding of the technologies, because I think that Ukraine, uh, more, better and faster in, uh, uh, in constructing something new, something new technologies. But Russia, of course, um, the more better in, uh, than us in scaling of this technology. And that's just a matter of their industrial.

31:06Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

31:36Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We call it like asymmetrical solutions. Of course, we haven't so much soldiers like Russia, of course, we haven't so much bloody

32:07oil money like Russia, of course, we haven't so much vehicles or other, other, other like Russia. Of course, we destroyed a lot of Russian techniques, so they used horses. But anyway, we haven't. But we have our smart and we have our understanding that we need something asymmetrical, and we made it. We made these drones, FPV drones in 2022, no, not made, we re-understand the obvious of

32:42using these drones in 2022, and we show to the world that in modern war, it's not important how big and how many people you have. If you have technologies, very cheap technologies, you can take this war and you can win this war. We still believe that we can win this war. And I think that it's not about the land, it's about our understanding.

33:16And we truly understand that Ukraine is not a part of Russia. And we showed it during this four years. And it shows that if they will have some questions to us in the future, we will have the good answers

International Expansion and the Future

33:32to these questions. I know you have to go, but my last question is the future. The war will end, we all hope, I mean, certainly it will end someday. Ukraine has developed this drone industry. What happens to that industry after the war? We're actively working now for our international expansion. So we want to do this, not only because of money, but because we think about our partners,

34:10about our Western partners, and we want to help our Western partners to make big and very good defense system, because only we and Russia know how to operate in this modern war. And of course, we want to export our drones. Of course, we want to make some maybe joint factories and joint ventures with different companies from USA or from Europe.

34:46And we actively work on this way, because we have a lot of conversation with, from, from Riga to Los Angeles, and we're trying to find good partners, because we don't need the money. Yeah, of course, we are open for investments, we're open for different type of venture, it's not a problem. But first of all, we need good R&D and technologies, we need good engineers from the West, who can help us to make this product better.

35:22Because we have a lot of our expertise from the front, from the battlefield. And if we will help this accept to the Western, maybe institutes or maybe the Western best engineers, we can combine it and make something, something really good. And are you looking beyond defense? Are there commercial non-defense applications? Non-defense? Like a dual use?

35:53I think that we should start to think about the drones, not only about during the war, we should start thinking about the drones during our civil life. Because if we can make some kind of, because we will see, we will see that drones will be used by different, different, maybe different terrorist group, maybe different, different, different, for different murders, assassination as other as other. We will see it.

36:28So, we open to work, not only with militars, but with different security services, different police, police, national guard from different countries. And, of course, we open it for work with big corporations who wanna make this own security from drones, because drones is not only about, uh, uh, uh, kamikaze drones, it's not only about targeting drones, it's about intelligence drones, it's about blackmailing drones, it's about, like, uh, not legal cargo, uh, deliverance and other, other, other.

37:07So, uh, we understand drones and we, uh, know how to operate it and we know how to, uh, destroy it. So, we are opening to different collaborations in different, different ways. Uh, like example, when the, when the era of internet came to us, every company, every government structure, uh, started to make some kind of, kind of, cyber security services. services. Now, I think that's, we started the era of drones and every department in every government, in every big company, not in, not big company,

37:44in every company will make some kind of drone security department. And this drone security department should, uh, write these rules of security because it's very important. Yeah. And we're open to show our expertise in it. We're open to it. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's leave it there.