Baykar Makina

For 2023, the head of Baykar Makina, Selchuk Bayraktar, is the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

2024: Baykar spoke about the construction of a plant near Kyiv

Baykar began building a drone production plant near Kyiv. This was announced in early February 2024 by the executive director of the company Haluk Bayraktar.

Our plant is under construction. We need about 12 months to complete the construction, and then we will move on to internal equipment, equipment and organizational structure, "Reuters quoted Bayraktar as saying.

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Reuters

According to the head of Baykar, the annual performance of the Ukrainian enterprise will be about 120 Bayraktar drones. He also noted that it is not yet clear whether these will be TB2 or TB3 models. About 500 jobs are planned at the plant, Haluk Bayraktar said.

When asked by Reuters about possible problems regarding the safety of the plant, the Baykar CEO said that "the plans are being implemented in full, and nothing can stop it."^[1]

Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov said earlier that the construction of the Bayraktar production plant "falls under the topic of demilitarization" and "will only prolong the suffering of Ukrainians." A Kremlin spokesman said that the appearance of such a plant would not prevent Moscow from achieving all the goals of a special military operation.

At the end of January 2024, Haluk Bayraktar said that the construction of the enterprise near Kyiv was suspended because Ukrainian officials extorted a bribe of $10 million from him for connecting the future plant to power grids.

2023

Statement by the Ukrainian Minister on the construction of a Bayraktar UAV production plant in Ukraine

In Ukraine, they began to build a Bayraktar UAV production plant, the Ukrainian Minister of Strategic Industries said in July 2023. But in reality, construction work began only in 2024. Earlier, the general director of the Turkish company Baykar Makina said that they expect to start production there in 2025.

Turkey and Ukraine signed a memorandum on the development of joint production of drones back in July 2023. Then Baykar CEO Haluk Bayraktar said that he expects to start producing Bayraktar TB2 and Bayraktar Akinci in Ukraine in 2025. Turkish manufacturer will invest $100 million in the plant.

Which countries purchase UAV companies

The second Karabakh war in 2020, the fighting in Libya and the initial stage of the armed conflict in Ukraine created an ideal advertisement for the Turkish attack drones Bayraktar TB2, which allowed the Turks to conclude dozens of new contracts.

By May 2023, Turkish UAVs of various types are in service with more than 20 countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. More than 15 countries have already held substantive negotiations on the purchase of unmanned weapons.

2022: Plan to increase production due to high order levels

In August 2022, the Turkish news agency SavunmaSanayiST published an interview with the CEO of the private company Baykar Technology Haluk Bayraktar, in which he spoke about the future plans of the industrial enterprise.

He stated that 20 Bayraktar TB2 drones are currently being produced at Baykar facilities every month. This amount is not enough to meet the needs of all 22 customer countries (more than 500 UAVs have been ordered for the next three years), so an increase to 30 UAVs per month is expected by next year.

Representatives of the company intend to achieve this goal through the construction of a plant in Esenyurt, money for which was allocated back in September 2019. In addition, this enterprise plans to produce 46 Bayraktar TB2 UAVs, 24 AKINCI UAVs, 36 combat unmanned aircraft systems, as well as many ground systems and additional systems annually.

Ukrainian news outlets reported on the company's intention to produce Turkish drones in Ukraine. Moreover, we are talking about the release of UAV Bayraktar TB2, Bayraktar Akıncı and Bayraktar Kizilelma.

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