Defense drones assaulted, prompting a Russian company to seek reimbursement for defense expenditures
Russia is witnessing a significant growth in its drone technology sector, with investments expected to reach almost 1 trillion rubles by the end of 2026, aiming to produce 18,000 domestic units per year. This growth, however, comes with its own set of challenges, particularly in the realm of security and protection against drone attacks.
According to Valery Andrianov, a senior lecturer at the Financial University under the Russian government, protecting the economy from terrorist attacks is a direct responsibility of the state. However, he acknowledges that it may not be feasible to place air defense forces next to every important object. This has led to businesses taking matters into their own hands, actively insuring against drone attacks. Last year, payouts from these insurances amounted to close to 1.5-2% of the value of their main assets.
Industrial facilities, such as oil refineries, metallurgical and chemical industry enterprises, and electric power infrastructure, are regular targets in drone attacks. As a result, businesses are forced to spend significant amounts on protection and restoration work. Maxim Shaposhnikov, an independent industrial expert, estimates that the total costs for security against drone attacks will reach up to 200 billion rubles in 2025.
To address these issues, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) has proposed several support measures. These include retroactive support measures from January 1, 2025, including a tax compensation of 50% of actual expenses for protective structures and lost income. Another measure is an additional excise tax credit to compensate for lost profits, differentiated depending on the period of downtime. The third measure is to include 50% of expenses for anti-terrorist protection measures and lost income from production stoppages in the federal investment tax credit, reducing the federal part of the profit tax to zero.
Alexander Shokhin, RSPP President, sent a letter with the initiative to Vladimir Putin in July. The Ministry of Finance, however, did not support the introduction of the proposed RSPP support measures into the Tax Code. Instead, the Ministry of Finance considers compensation for enterprises' expenses on anti-terrorist security to have an "individual and specific character" and should be considered "in each specific case" at the level of the Prime Minister of Russia without changes to the Tax Code.
The search results do not contain information on when the Russian government announced the development of drone delivery services for transporting goods between Russia and China. An experiment for delivering cargo from Russia to China using drones was, however, announced in the Federation Council. The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade anticipates staffing needs in the field of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to be around 355,000 people from 2025 to 2030, with 56,000 specialists needing higher education and 299,000 needing secondary professional education.
By 2030, the share of Russian drones in the market is expected to increase to 70.3%. This growth in the military technology sector is also due to related areas such as medicine and infrastructure. The volume of the military technology market in Russia in 2024 was 300 billion rubles, with over 100 billion rubles allocated for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and another 10% (30 billion rubles) for electronic warfare (EW) means.
The extinction of couriers in Russia could start in two to three years, according to a report. As the drone technology sector continues to evolve, it remains to be seen how these developments will shape Russia's economy and security landscape in the years to come.
