The Shahed Factory: How Much Has Russia Already Spent on the Drone War?

Between 2022 and 2025, Russia has allocated at least $3 billion to develop its own drone industry, including Shahed kamikaze strike drones. More than 900 companies, most of which are small and medium-sized businesses, are involved in the process.

This is stated in the Defense News article.

According to open Russian data, at least 7,000 people work in the drone manufacturing sector. And although a significant part of the investment is under the guise of “civilian” programs – in particular agricultural – in fact these resources are directed to ensuring military production.

In the last two years alone, the volume of drone production in the Russian Federation has increased 2.5 times, and the production of long-range drones has increased at least five times. In some regions, such as the Alabuga economic zone, large-scale production facilities have been created, employing tens of thousands of workers. It is here that the assembly of Shahed drones, known in Russian as Geran-2, has been established.

Drone production is also being carried out by companies that specialized in civilian products before the full-scale war — for example, the Albatross enterprise, which previously manufactured equipment for the agricultural sector.

In addition, for 2025–2027, the Russian government is investing more than 20 billion rubles in the creation of research centers in the field of unmanned technologies. They are to be located throughout the country.

Over the next three years, Moscow plans to spend another $1.38 billion on developing infrastructure for mass production of all types of drones, separate from the military budget. This approach allows it to partially conceal the scale of financing for the drone strike potential.

Russian analysts do not hide that the goal of this program is to ensure the ability to conduct constant massive drone attacks on Ukraine and prepare for a potential high-intensity conflict in the future.

Recall that Russia’s military spending in 2024 reached almost $150 billion, which is 38% more than in 2023 and twice as much as in the past decade . Military spending amounts to 19% of all Russian government spending.

As reported, the head of the General Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, stated that Russia intends to spend about $1.1 trillion on military rearmament by 2036.

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