378 Audio.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

378 Audio.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Marko Kushnir: 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 because you just need a robot. You just need a drone.

Craig Smith: 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?

Marko Kushnir: I think that Ukraine is better in constructing something new, something new technologies. But Russia, of course, is better in the US in scaling of these technologies. Drones is not only about targeting. We understand drones know how to operate it, and we know how to destroy it. So we are open to different collaborations in different ways.

Craig Smith: Introduce yourself and explain the company you work for and the drone you produce and how how important it is in the current. Battle with Russia.

Marko Kushnir: My name is Marco. I'm a director of communications of one of the biggest drone producers in Ukraine. Our company called General Theory, and we produce different type of drones. Uh, it's, uh, we have different products like from ordinary chemical from 7 to 15in, uh.

Craig Smith: 7 to 15in.

Marko Kushnir: Inches. Yeah. And we and, but of course, we have a fragment products. Flagship products. Products like, uh, interceptors. So here is one of our flagship. It's interceptor. General. Cherry. Bullet. Bullet. It's a strategic interceptor for anti work. So we destroy the Russian jackets or so-called Jarren Duran is drawn by this drone. But we have different type of interceptors. We have tactical interceptors. It's like general cherry air. It's interceptor for, uh, different, uh, drones, uh, who worked on frontline like Zala or once Lancet's Monia and other other Russian Russian drones. And of course, we, uh, we make drone on fiber optics and we have different type of fiber optics from, uh, ten, 10km to 40km.

Craig Smith: 40km.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah. Yeah. And we think that we can make more than 40km. And we, we, we will make it so because, uh, our modern, uh, frontline, not frontline, of course, it's now we call it kill zone. You should know about it. So we, uh, haven't any front end and we haven't any gray zone in our war. We have only kill zone. It's like different parts of frontline. Uh, kill zone can be from 1km Kilometres to 20km. So it's an area where only the drones rule everything. So you can use your vehicles. You can use any type of um um big, big cars or any type of armored vehicles. You can use only your feet if you will be lucky or you can use, uh, different unmanned systems or unmanned systems, ground mounted systems. So, uh, and, uh, of course, this zone of, of big, uh, work of, uh, reps and different technologies. And it's, uh, that's the answer, the question why we really need different drones on fiber optics. So we, we have it, uh, our company, uh. Was made in 2023. We started from ten runs per month. And now we produce more than I can. Can give you a correct number because it's not secure information. But we made thousands, tens of thousands per month. Nearly 100,000 per month, maybe.

Craig Smith: Okay, let me just unpack some of that because, uh. Uh, so it's general cherry is the name of the drone cherry.

Marko Kushnir: Cherry. It's like the name of company.

Craig Smith: The, the company and, and also the family of drugs.

Marko Kushnir: Also the family of drones.

Craig Smith: Yeah. Cherry, you were telling me it's a symbol because the town that. Yeah.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah, it's a symbol. Uh, originally our company came from Zaporizhzhia region. It's, uh, south and central, south part of Ukraine. Uh, and the region has different symbols. And, uh, one of the symbols of Zaporizhzhia is a cherry gardens, different cherry gardens. So for us, for us, it's very important story because we want to remember about our roots and we want to remember about us. One of the biggest city of Zaporizhzhia region, the city of Melitopol, is the cherry is a general symbol, a symbol of city of Melitopol. And the city of Melitopol is now temporary occupied territory. So we want to remember that we came from this fence. And of course, we will come back to this one.

Craig Smith: How many drone companies are there now manufacturers in Ukraine and what percentage of the drones on the battlefield? I mean, originally there were Mavic, there were DJI. Yeah. Um, 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 that group of manufacturers?

Marko Kushnir: Uh, I think hundreds of companies, uh, I don't know the correct number, but I think that it's maybe hundreds or thousands of different drone companies. Oh, really? Only, only only. And I, I can tell you only about the drones. Uh, I don't know the situation on the ground system or the water system, but in, in the air, uh, in air drones, we have maybe hundreds and hundreds company in Ukraine. Of course, we have like maybe 10 or 15 big companies who can produce more than ten of thousands, tens of thousands drones per month. But, uh, I don't know how many, uh, garage factories we have in different, uh, in different years and in different, uh, different small rooms. And these guys can make the drones, too. So thousand companies maybe.

Craig Smith: And where do you stand in?

Marko Kushnir: In different locations?

Craig Smith: No. But are you the largest or a mid middle.

Marko Kushnir: Where we are in a maybe in the top five of in general in.

Craig Smith: 2023? Uh, 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. Uh, is this, are you using off the shelf technology? Who's producing, uh, the navigation systems? Who's producing the fiber optic? Is that stuff you buy off the shelf? And most importantly, where are you getting the AI models and what are you using them for?

Marko Kushnir: And just our own, uh, development because we have very strong and big R&D department, and we try to make every technologies by our own, uh, our own power. So, uh, every technology that we have, every technology that we use, the technology that made by us, but, but with very, uh, close and very deep collaboration with, uh, our militaries from different, uh, different units from different, uh, regimes. Uh, so, uh, it's always about, uh, collaboration with our military because we make products for these units and we, uh, of course we need, uh, this feedback. Of course we need this understanding of frontline situation. And of course, we should know what work better and what were what, what work worst. So, uh, that we made, we made by our R&D and of course, by our not not only, uh, not only about hard technologies. And it's about the soft technologies too, like a targeting, but we always made it, made it only with military units. So it's very important part of our work because we, of course, in Ukraine, we have very easy access to, uh, to battle proof status. And we can test every, our product like every day. And it's very easy for us to, to, to do it. And, uh, so we have different, uh, mobile groups who came to our military in different parts of front, uh, every day. And we take this feedback and we know that what we should do next, not only like for, uh, weekend or for four months, we can see in like near future. And we. We can understand what we need. Uh, the next step in this technology war and what we should do and what the what the product should be next. Because, uh, our soldiers give us this information.

Craig Smith: Yeah. And, uh, when did you develop this form factor? I mean, as a rocket, uh, shape as opposed to a flat quadcopter.

Marko Kushnir: It's not a, it's not a, you, not a general Ukrainian technology, this form factor because, uh, 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 uh, so there's a Red bull team. Red bull, uh, was first one who makes this form factor. Uh, and after, uh, different Ukrainian components and our two so that it's working because this form factor can reach higher speeds than ordinary quadrocopter, ordinary FPV drone. And, uh, we understand that it's working and we try to find different form factors, but now we think that this one is the best one for us.

Craig Smith: Yeah. And so it, uh, I mean, I'll, I'll.

Marko Kushnir: Start like ordinary fpv after start. They put down like a rocket and they fly like, like a little rocket.

Craig Smith: I see. Yeah. Like a cruise missile.

Marko Kushnir: Cruise missile.

Craig Smith: And is the uh, payload or the, the warhead inside the rocket. It's not uh, I mean this.

Marko Kushnir: Inside here.

Craig Smith: Right? So it's a kamikaze drone. It's not a release. Do you is this the, the most common, uh. Product? Or do you also make the the drones that release munitions?

Marko Kushnir: We have a project, uh, with, uh, the so-called middle bomber, uh, because it's very important for our militaries to when you can come with this drone and make some money or make some goods. Uh, I don't remember this one. Not delivery like delivery of money on the Russian Russian heads. Yeah. We have this project, but we, uh, now it's like in deeply producing stage. So it's not, uh, it's not a not, not yet released.

Craig Smith: Right.

Marko Kushnir: But 90, 90% of our drones, it's kamikaze drones, right?

Craig Smith: And so you're producing tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand a month.

Marko Kushnir: There will be one, I think that will be 100,000 per month. Once again, I can give you the correct number, but 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.

Craig Smith: Yeah. And what is the the demand? I mean, how many are are you are the military units consuming 100,000 a month?

Marko Kushnir: So, uh, we, we working with more than 110 military brigades. Yeah. It's like, uh, I think 300 units. Mhm. And of course, they, they use more than 100 rounds per month. Uh, I, I don't know the correct number, but I think that's, uh, one of our best units can use more than 5000 drones per month easily.

Craig Smith: And that's because missed targets or missed malfunctions or.

Marko Kushnir: Different, different reasons. Different reasons. Human factor, weather factors, uh, spoofing. Uh, not likely. Uh, different reasons, different reasons.

Craig Smith: So and that was, I mean, getting to the AI part, um, is the AI that you're using, what model are you using? How do you communicate with the drone? Is it 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.

Marko Kushnir: I should tell you that it's for me. It's like, uh, one of the first steps of, uh, AI integration process in drones because our any technology is like a, um, I should tell you that it's like how autonomous. So, uh, of course you need the operator. Of course you need, uh, of course you need to control the drone, uh, fly. But when you detect the, uh, air target like a Shahid, our drone can, um, can understand that it's tracked and our drone can, can control itself and can go to this jacket without any operator, uh, control. And, and, uh, it's like a, it's, it's a good one. It's first steps, but it's not about fully autonomous system. It's not about some kind of, uh, great warm, uh, great, great wall of swarm technology, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because tell the truth. We saw that nobody in this world, for now, have a good AI technology in drones because it's very, very hard technologies and we don't know how it will work on the battlefield. We don't know how it will work, uh, on the ground too. So it's very hard, but we have some kind of half AI. So our AI model can, can detect that run, uh, can, uh, can, can aim this drone and you don't need to, uh, you shouldn't do more if your pilot. So you can only detect and, uh, and you can fly to this drone on cruise control and shut down it.

Craig Smith: Okay. And you were talking about the drones that the Russians are using. Can you explain what that drone is? Is that the primary? Yeah. Attack from from the Russians.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah. So once again, we have two different type of interceptors. This one is this interceptor drone for Russian charts. Charts or Geran. Uh, uh, it's, uh, originally Iranian drone, uh, but now Russian produced thousands and thousands of drone in Russia. So it's like a big, uh, deep strike drawn, uh, or because like, maybe different type can be different, but it costs from 50,000 to 100, 100 and more thousand dollars. So it's big, big kamikaze drone, big strike drone who came to, uh, and it's, uh, who came to who and Russia use it for, uh, different terrorist attack to our cities. It's not like frontline drone because the other drone from frontline, it's only drone for, uh, deep strikes for, to, for our cities. They use it for different reasons because they can, uh, overdose, our air defense system. And we, uh, we, we should use very high priced rockets from different Western air defense systems for the jackets. And it's not okay for us. So we find the solution, we find the solution that we can make small, faster and very dangerous, uh, interceptor drone who this drone costs like $2,000 and you can destroy this big machine with this little drone.

Craig Smith: I should have made that clear at the beginning. These are primarily anti-drone counter drone, uh, uh, weapons. They're intended to attack other drones.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah, yeah.

Craig Smith: Are they also for attacking? Are they also anti-personnel?

Marko Kushnir: It's not for personal. Of course it's not for personal. It's like a drone with a drone. Firstly, maybe you can give somebody from this drone two if you will have some kind of, uh, half a kilo C4 here. Of course, you can kill somebody, but it's, uh, it's not the general goal of this drone. So yeah, the general goal is to destroy Russian drones.

Craig Smith: All of the drones in your line are anti-drone drones.

Marko Kushnir: No, no, no, we we have just ordinary FPV and ordinary FPV and fiber optic. We of course used by uh, different, uh, for, for different targets like persons, vehicles, uh, artillery and other other, so we, uh, we have products for maybe for every target on the battlefield.

Craig Smith: Yeah. I mean, you were saying earlier that that there's no longer a clear front line, that there's 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 within that kill zone, um, their drones on either side that are hunting, uh, men or soldiers, uh, in that zone. So are the lines. Is that why the lines are fairly fixed? Because it's very difficult to advance because of the, the drones.

Marko Kushnir: It's of course, it's not about some kind of fixed line. So it's like, um, I think that it's, it's about different, different, different. So many, many little zones with. And it can be like a for one kilometer and it can be like for 20km. So it's, a it's a one big kill zone who consists from different zones with different, uh, different, uh, tactical and operational situation in the zone. So and the zone consists only from personals in trenches and some kind of small trenches and a lot of a lot of different drones, air drones, ground drones. So it's like a kingdom of drones.

Craig Smith: Drones. Yeah. And so this the interceptor. When did you start manufacturing interceptors? Because in 2023 you were manufacturing.

Marko Kushnir: So our tactical interceptor General Air first was produced, uh, not massively produced. Yeah. In February 2025. And since February 2025, we, uh, more than 5000 confirmed, uh, Russian drones drone strikes. So more than 5000 is a very big number. So only in December we shut down more than 1000 Russians. Monias only one type of drone, I think you know, about pneumonia drones. Uh, it's very, very cheap, very dangerous Russian drones. And we shut down more than 1000, uh, by our tactical interceptor, general air. So this one, uh, we start produced in October 2025. Uh, we start producing maybe in December 2025. And now we have more than. Tens of tens, uh, confirmed strikes. I don't know, maybe, maybe near be this confirmed strike, maybe more, maybe, maybe, maybe 100. So I don't want to don't want to tell you tell the correct number. But it's worked. It's worked and it's worked well.

Craig Smith: Okay. And so you have AI for the the targeting. Yeah. When you launch this, I mean, how do you how do you know what direction to, to send it? I mean, how do you know there's an incoming.

Marko Kushnir: It's like complex work with others with different, different, uh, different, rather different system that our military knows that, oh, we know that we have three jackets in our sector. We see on radars. We know that these jackets come to us close. So they launch this drone. You need like 30s to launch it, take it in one shot. And after this, you, um, for for us, you try. You should find this drone with rudder with your, uh, with your rather and understand that oh, I see it. And after, after this you can use AI targeting.

Craig Smith: Okay, so 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 there, is the AI, uh, in the cloud and, and, uh, communicating with the drone or is it on device? On device it's on the device.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah.

Craig Smith: And it's a small model on a chip. Yeah.

Marko Kushnir: It's a little, just little model, uh, in our cameras. So you can, it's like on, on device, a little processor, right?

Craig Smith: And is there a camera in this? And yeah.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah, you can, you can see this camera.

Craig Smith: 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? Does it have a name.

Marko Kushnir: That's just our own. So I don't want to tell it your own. It's our own software. It's our own software. And I don't think that I should tell some. Okay.

Craig Smith: But you developed it or you buy it from overseas.

Marko Kushnir: Uh, firstly, we, uh, we both like, we buy like a small team who start to make this soft, uh, software and we, uh, we bought it and we, uh, give them, of course money software technologies for fast scaling. And now it's like a part of our R&D R&D team.

Craig Smith: 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. And it's, uh, what's the, the metric to measure accuracy? Is it 90% accurate, 50% accurate, 20% accurate.

Marko Kushnir: Depends. It depends. Different situation. Uh, it's, I think that it's more than 70% for now. It's 70, 80% of.

Craig Smith: Of accuracy will will find their target. Yeah. And it's carrying a warhead that's strong enough to destroy the.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah. Yeah. Of course, you just need like, uh, 400g of explosive and you can destroy it.

Craig Smith: And what kind of explosive is it, C4 or.

Marko Kushnir: Uh, depends on the situation, what you have.

Craig Smith: Yeah, but it's manufactured with the with the charge in it.

Marko Kushnir: No, no, no, we we just met with the drones. Maybe some of you want to use it on the wedding. I don't know, we we don't produce, uh, with the weapon.

Craig Smith: I see so, so when you ship it to the military, they pop the. Can you pop the top off that?

Marko Kushnir: Uh, no, because it's we we need to say so because it's fully, fully, fully, fully constructs and takes a full, full construct. But it's very easy. You just need to take off.

Craig Smith: You put the charge in. Yeah. And the trigger is already there. Or.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah, you have two different type of triggers, like for a kinetic power and the, the first one and the like a button on your controller. You can, you can choose what what you what you want.

Craig Smith: How has the addition of AI changed? Uh, drone warfare.

Marko Kushnir: Over the skeleton question. Very scary 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 because you just need a robot. You just need a drone. And if it will be fully automatic, not okay if it will be like a semi-automatic, like in our, uh, interceptors, it will be crazy. But for now, uh, it's for now why we don't use the semi-automatic AI in our ordinary drones because, uh, it's, it gives us more high price for the drones. You don't need it if you can. For our military, better if you can buy like a five ordinary TV without AI, it will be better than you can buy one FPV but with AI. But we'll see because we are talking about the technologies and I think that the technologies will be 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 on the front end. Very scared. So we'll see. But I think that for us, the general point is, the most important point for us now is to make the fully a fully autonomous interceptor system. So when you can take this drone in some kind of box, uh, go carry it on the board or maybe some on the deep ground and just use it only for one button, so it will be great for us. We will see. But I don't want to think about the AI technologies in the ordinary battlefield because it will be very, very bad for both sides. Of course we want to that, uh, the best side for our enemies. But we know that we take some technologies from enemies, technologies takes technologies from us. So if we will have this technology, they will, will, they will have these technologies maybe in a week or two.

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

Marko Kushnir: I think that we should, uh, we should talk about two different systems, two different type of understanding 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, the more better in the US in scaling of this technology.

Craig Smith: And that's just a matter of their industrial.

Marko Kushnir: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's about about about different because we live in a capitalistic Ukraine. We have different companies. We have, uh, we have different, uh, like markets, uh, relationships, uh, and other hazards. And Russia you have strong classic. Tyranny vertical. And you can scale everything very fast.

Craig Smith: Yeah. Yeah. So this hasn't prevented it. You're not winning the war because of you have interceptor drones or FPV drones or you're just maintaining, uh, the line or the, the, the, the zone. You're not um.

Marko Kushnir: We call it asymmetrical solutions. Of course, we haven't so much soldiers like Russia. Of course, we haven't so much oil money like Russia because we have so much vehicles or other other other like Russia. But of course we destroyed a lot of Russian techniques. So they use horses. But anyway, we cannot. But we have our smart and we have our understanding that we need something asymmetrical. And we made it. We made these drones and drones in 2022. No, not made, but rather understand the use of using drones in 2022. And we show to the world that in modern war, it's not important how big and how how many people you have. If you have technologies, very cheap technologies, you can you can take this war and you can win this war. We still believe that we we can win this war. And I think that, uh, it's not about the land. It's about our understanding. We truly understand that Ukraine is not a part of Russia. And we showed it in, in during these four years. And we showed that if they will have some questions to us in the future, we will have the answers to these questions.

Craig Smith: And I know you have to go. But my last question is, uh, the future, uh, the war will end, we all hope. Uh, I mean, certainly it will end someday. Uh, Ukraine has developed this drone industry. What happens to that industry after after the war?

Marko Kushnir: We actively working now for our international expansion. So we really yeah, we want to, uh, we want to do this not only because of money, but because we think about our partners, about our Western partners. And we want to help our Western partners, uh, to, to make big and, very good defense system, because only we and Russia know how to operate in this modern world. And of course, we want to export our drones. Of course we want to. Make some maybe joint factory and joint ventures with different companies from USA or from Europe. And we are actively working on this way because we have a lot of conversation with from from Riga to Los Angeles. And we trying to find good partners because we don't need the money for those. 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 like a good R&D and technologies. We need good engineers from the West who can help us. Help us to make this product better because we have a lot of our expertise from the front, from the battlefield. And if we have this, uh, accept to the Western, uh, maybe institutes or maybe the Western best engineers, we can combine it and make something, something really? Yeah.

Craig Smith: I mean, are you looking beyond defense? Are there are there commercial, uh, nondefense applications?

Marko Kushnir: Non defense. I can do use, uh, I think that's we should start to think about drones not only about in during the war, we should start thinking about the drones during, uh, like in our civil life. Because if we can make some kind of, uh, because we will see, we will see that drones will be used by different, different, maybe different terrorist groups, maybe different, different for different murders, assassination as other, as other. We will see it. So we open to work not only with militaries, but with different, uh, security services, different police, police, national guard from different countries. And, and of course, we openly for work with big corporations who want to make this own security from drones, because drones is not only about, uh, kamikaze drones, it's not only about targeting drones, it's about intelligence drones, it's about blackmailing drones. It's about like, um, not legal cargo delivery and, and other, other others. So, uh, we understand drones and we know how to operate it and we know how to, uh, destroy it. So we are open to different collaborations in different, different ways. Like, for example, when the when the era of internet came to us, every company, every government structure started to make some kind of cyber security services. Now, I think that we started there of drones and every department in every government, in every big company, not in not big company. And 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 for us and we open to show our expertise in it. We open for it.

Craig Smith: Yeah. Okay. Well, let's leave it there.

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