Inside Ukraine's drone boom: a blueprint for modern warfare on a budget

Business Insider traveled to Kyiv last month to find out what countries can learn from Ukraine 's drone industry.

With Ukraine burning through thousands of combat drones each month , its drone makers are focused on rapid assembly and sourcing cheap parts.

Kyiv has said it produced 2.2 million drones last year , compared to Moscow 's 1.5 million .

With defense tech booming, the drone makers aren't just building weapons but rewriting the rules of modern warfare.

Ukraine 's drone industry was born from crowdfunding efforts and start-ups, often civilians with software or engineering backgrounds.

At the start of the war, just a handful of Ukrainian companies were working on aerial drones.

Now, there are over 500, with more than 1,100 individual products.

Drones are eliminating warships, tanks, radar arrays, advanced reconnaissance platforms, among other expensive combat assets.

Ukraine 's drone makers invent their products within a few months or weeks ; they quickly supply them to the military, test them in realistic situations, and adapt.

Western arms makers invest hundreds of millions of dollars in weapon systems that take years to make and may not work in real combat conditions.