Researching Ukraine 

An American in Ukraine

Documenting the country, its people, and its culture during wartime and beyond. Paid subscriptions help sustain the work.

@ukrainebiz

🇺🇦 Futurist, Defense Analyst | SME in Drone Warfare, C-UAS, and AI | Founder, Researching Ukraine OSINT Briefing | Co-Founder, Ukraine Assistance Organization Слава Україніv

Mar 30, 2026

Oleksandr Yakovenko is the head of TAF, a leading drone manufacturer in Ukraine. 

—

Dear Mr. Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall,

When you referred to Ukrainian drone manufacturers as “Ukrainian housewives with 3D printers” you revealed just how deeply the European defense establishment still fails to understand the nature of modern warfare.

This is not about emotion. It is about battlefield reality. Here are the facts your industry refuses to acknowledge:

In 2025 alone, Ukrainian drones carried out 819,737 confirmed strikes. They caused 90 percent of all Russian combat losses, more than all other weapons systems combined.

TAF alone produces up to 100k FPV drones monthly. In any given 90-day period, my company’s products alone achieve more confirmed strikes than your entire fleet of equipment has across its full combat history in every conflict. And most importantly, I built this company and achieved these results in two years, not fifty. Think about that.

Our drones generate more kinetic effect in three months than your flagship platforms have in half a century.

Why? Because the battlefield has changed, and your business model has not.

• Russian electronic warfare has made GPS-guided Western munitions such as Excalibur and GMLRS nearly ineffective.

• Expensive and complex systems designed for wars with air superiority and traditional peer-to-peer combat have become easy prey for drones costing $500, attacking them from above.

• The cost-to-effect ratio has been turned upside down: one 120 mm Rheinmetall shell or one anti-tank missile costs more than a dozen of our drones, and yet our drones still win.

This is not a “Lego game.” It is industrial Darwinism in real time. We iterate every week. We print parts in basements and ship 100k strike systems per month, while your engineers still require three to five years and hundreds of millions of euros in certification costs for even a minor upgrade.

The war in Ukraine is not a temporary anomaly. It is the first true drone-industrial war. And it has already proven that outdated European platforms, no matter how expensive or “serious” they may seem, are becoming less and less relevant unless they integrate the very technologies you mock.

So when you say, “this is not innovation,” I hear something else: “We do not want to admit that the future is being written in Ukrainian workshops, not in Düsseldorf boardrooms.”

#MadeByHousewives is trending for a reason. Because these “housewives” destroy more enemy equipment every month than entire European armies do in full campaigns. And they do it while your industry continues to sell 20th-century solutions at 21st-century prices.

The invitation remains open, Mr. Papperger. Stop laughing at the kitchen table. Come and learn how tomorrow’s war is actually being fought. Because the next time someone asks, “Who needs tanks in the age of drones?”, the answer may be simpler than you think: Whoever still believes in 1979 will lose to whoever is building in 2026.

With respect, but with facts,

Oleksandr Yakovenko “Ukrainian housewives”

Founder TAF

………………….

Comment from :

Constantin 

@fabspidercrab

Pappenberger knows he cannot compete with the evolutionary speed of the Ukrainian defense industry. This is a long term, strategic threat to Rheinmetal and like OEMs 

His company is good at the old game: influencing German politicians when it comes to writing tenders, developing a spec to that tender, and then building a platform towards that tender over many years, collecting a lot of toll money along the way. Eventually, they even get paid to scrap the very stuff they built. Brilliant!

There is nothing inherently wrong with this business model, it’s a reflection of the ecosystem that German / EU / NATO / applicable politicians created. But, Rheinmetal is both perfectly adapted as well as equally ossified because of it. 

Crucially, there was no incentive structure to have spare production capacity in case the need would arise. Hence, Rheinmetal, Raytheon, etc cannot build Patriots, Taurus, shells, or whatever western platform at any kind of scale approaching the needs of an ongoing conflict. They don’t have the production capacity, supply chains, space, trained people, partners, etc. to make that happen.

Out of that shortfall arose the Ukrainian world class response re drone warfare, FPV or otherwise. They remain a crucial component in limiting Ukrainian service member casualties, slowing Russian advances, and exacting a terrible toll on the occupiers / invaders – both at the front, as well as in the hinterland.

However, we would be remiss to also not recognize that the Ukrainian conflict is somewhat unique in that it’s the first modern war where one side was not able to establish air supremacy or at least partial air superiority. This totally breaks established western military models of savaging supply lines, destroying Command and Control, obliterating critical infrastructure that allows a military to operate. 

IF Ukraine had been given unfettered access to all things expired in western militaries at the beginning of 2022 – without targeting restrictions – the Ukraine war would likely have been over. Instead, the US and allies parceled out drips and drabs of aid, with Jake Sullivan and like strategic geniuses falling for Putins threats and getting played like a fiddle.