MOSCOW, October 13 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Ministry of Defense will order the production of several hundred Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Director of UAV development programs at Russia’s Vega Radio Engineering Corporation Arkady Syroyezhko told RIA Novosti.

“According to our estimates, the Ministry of Defense will need several hundred UAVs until 2020. We need to think about how and where to produce the requested amount of hardware the client needs. We have set up an investment project, and next year we are launching a short-range [UAV] systems production facility in Rybinsk [a city in Russia’s Yaroslavl region],” Syroyezhko said.

Syroyezhko added that short- and medium-range UAVs market is a completely new branch of production, and Russia does not have an adequate basis for such industry just yet.

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry announced it would spend $9.2 billion on acquiring new drones and training military personnel to operate UAVs before 2020.