Central Asian drones: land of opportunity or saturated market?
Kazakhstan is locally producing Turkish Aerospace Industries' Anka UAV. (Photo: TAI)
As Central Asian countries have bolstered their UAV fleets, states have been keen to localise production (and in some cases cut ties with Russia) through deals with Turkey, Iran and Belarus.
Signs of a drone race in Central Asia are nothing new, as the region has represented a land of opportunities for foreign manufacturers, including China, Israel, Belarus, Turkey and Russia, for some time now.
However, with the war in Ukraine, the localisation of technology is a growing trend as players seek to gain regional superiority in the field of UAS.
This pattern was illustrated when in May 2022, Turkey first reported that it would begin co-producing its Anka drones with Kazakhstan at a production facility to be built in Astana, and less than a week later, Iran unveiled a new
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