The Ukrainian company Wild Hornets, which produces drones for the Defense Forces, announced that it has received a Bullet interceptor drone, which is produced by the General Chereshnya company, and considers it a 100% copy of its drone. What do they say in the General Headquarters?
The Ukrainian company Wild Hornets, which produces drones for the Defense Forces, announced that it has received a Bullet interceptor drone, which is produced by the General Chereshnya company, and considers it a 100% copy of its drone. What do they say in the General Headquarters?
The Wild Hornets announced this on their social media.
«Wild Hornets does not provide service support for copies of STING drones distributed on the front by the manufacturer General Chereshnya. We received a complete copy of our STING drone, which is produced by General Chereshnya under the name Bullet. Confirmation that this manufacturer 100% copied our solution is also posted on its social media pages,» the company said.
Wild Hornets noted that General Chereshnya did not apply for permission to copy, and no other manufacturer has received such permission. The company emphasized that it will not repair or service drones that copy their solutions.
Blogger, activist, and volunteer Serhiy Sternenko responded to the statement, noting that he had received many complaints from the military about the General Chereshnya drones.
«Unfortunately, billions of hryvnias were spent from the state budget on the MS. If we talk specifically about FPV against ground targets, then this is a waste of money. This is a loss for the country. This is unfulfilled combat missions. And an additional burden on us, because we are then forced to supply high-quality FPV instead of junk assembled with significant shortcomings,» said Sternenko.
He added that he personally provided feedback from drone operators to General Chereshnya representatives, but no changes were made to the products.
«Now they are also making fakes of other drones. By the way, these fakes have been purchased by individual local governments more than once,» wrote Serhiy Sternenko.
dev.ua reached out to the company «General Chereshnya» for comment and received a response.
«There should be more drones, there should be more anti-shaheeds. We want to work and exist in an effective ecosystem of security and defense agencies, where every decision is aimed at protecting Ukraine,» the manufacturer said in a statement.
The company noted that they cooperate with over 100+ military units, and feedback from the Defense Forces is key for General Chereshnya products.
«We have a strong R&D team that is constantly developing new solutions for technological warfare. We value horizontal relationships in the market and strive to build an open ecosystem with other manufacturers. Therefore, we are ready to share our solutions and technologies with other manufacturers. Building a strong, modern and efficient defense industry is our main idea,» the company says.
General Chereshnya noted that they provide «full support for drones of all manufacturers» at their own expense, with which the military contacts the service team. The statement notes that each of the company’s drones is an original codified product of the General Chereshnya team.
We present this fragment of the statement by «General Chereshnya» in full.
«Regarding the criticisms on social media regarding the product «General Chereshnya Bullet.»
«General Chereshnya» is a leader among Ukrainian manufacturers of interceptors. We have a diverse line and products, which are combined in two directions: AIR and Bullet.
AIR is one of the first Ukrainian interceptors that has been operating on the front line since the beginning of the year. During this time, it has destroyed thousands of tactical-level air targets: ZALA, Orlan, Lancet and others. These are the «eyes» of the enemy and his strike drones that could have killed our military. Thanks to AIR, this did not happen.
Bullet is a logical continuation of the line of interceptors, our «anti-shaheed». Our country suffers from constant attacks by the enemy with shaheed-like drones. Every day, Ukrainian cities are subjected to terrible blows, civilians are killed. Creating an anti-shaheed is our key task.
Bullet was created in very close collaboration with and at the request of the best units. We knew exactly what the military wanted.
The form factor of the product is not unique or belongs to «one manufacturer». This is not an exclusive invention of one Ukrainian manufacturer — it is a universal tail-sitter VTOL form, according to which drones are produced in the world. Similar drones are available from many global manufacturers: RAM-1 (Czech Republic), BLAZE from the Latvian company Origin Robotics, Israeli Hunter Eagle, Polish SKYctrl.
The key thing that should differentiate a drone is its internal components. Here we know that they are original and created with the clear request and vision of the military with whom we created this product.
The main thing: these are all prototype solutions, for which no contracts were invested and no state funds were spent. We transferred these prototypes worth more than 20 million hryvnias to the best divisions that are already operating. These transfers were made at the company’s own expense.
In order to strengthen the defense of the sky as soon as possible. And they are already working — video of the shooting down of the shaheeds.
That is: we spent our own money to transfer a product of our own production, which has already brought down several martyrs. Whether this should be done in conditions of war is a rhetorical question.
We have different lines and generations of Bullet, with different form factors and performance characteristics, and we use a guidance system (AI). We are researching, improving, and manufacturing different types of Bullet. After all, we want to find the best and most effective option. In addition, we welcome the MoD initiative on Octopus and plan to join the initiative.
All our actions are carried out in strict accordance with applicable legislation, including in the field of intellectual property rights and corruption prevention.
To sum up: there should be more drones, there should be more anti-shaheeds. We want to work and exist in an effective system of security and defense bodies, where every decision is aimed at protecting Ukraine.
Does it matter to a martyr who shot him down and with what?
TheSTING drone was first shown last fall. It became the first drone specifically designed to defeat Iranian Shahed drones launched by the Russians. At the same time, the Sting costs much less than the Russian-Iranian drones and can fly at speeds of more than 160 km per hour and climb to an altitude of about 3 km.
In February, Wild Hornets showed testing a new version of the STING drone. It can fly twice as long while maintaining its speed, which has increased to 200 km/h.
In the summer, the founder of PetCube and the miltech startup TheFourthLaw, Yaroslav Azhnyuk, announced that Kurbas thermal imaging cameras from another of his startups, Odd Systems, are being installed on Wild Hornets' STING interceptor drones. According to him, they have already destroyed dozens of «shaheeds.»
In October, a representative of the Wild Hornets company said that STING interceptor drones had intercepted more than 600 Russian UAVs in five months.
Also in October, General Chereshnya announced that its new Bullet drone had passed testing and was ready for mass production for the Defense Forces.
During testing, the developers managed to accelerate the Bullet to a speed of 309 km/h, which allows it to intercept fast and maneuvering targets. The drone is produced in several types: night, day and with a guidance system.
This week, General Chereshnya released the first video confirming the destruction of Iranian-Russian Shahed UAVs with its Bullet drone. The company claims that General Chereshnya’s Bullet and AIR interceptors have so far shot down dozens of Shahed-like drones.
