Tel Aviv: Israeli defence company Elbit Systems and Serbia’s state-owned firm Jugo Import SDPR have opened a joint drone assembly factory in Serbia. Elbit Systems holds a 51% majority stake, and Serbia’s SDPR holds 49%. The plant employs about 100 workers.
Both partners expect to build at least three more defence factories across Serbia. The site assembles advanced, Israeli-designed combat drones. Production includes short-range aircraft with rotating wings and faster, longer-range combat drones.
The factory is part of a larger military cooperation and modernisation agreement between Serbia and Israel worth over $1.6 billion.
Israeli sources said that the facility in Šimanovci will manufacture short-range strike drones for attack missions and long-range UAVs operating up to 6 km altitude, surpassing Serbia’s existing Pegasus combat-reconnaissance drone. In the past, Serbia purchased the Elbit systems Hermes-900 UAV.
Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries manufacture different types of attack drones. Sources said that the Serbs are interested in the Elbit Systems SkyStriker.
Three years ago, Elbit announced a SkyStriker deal in Europe without naming the country that purchased it. The war in Ukraine has increased the European interest in SkyStriker loitering weapon system,
According to Elbit Systems, SkyStriker is fully autonomous loitering munitions (LM) that can locate, acquire and strike operator-designated targets with a warhead installed inside the fuselage, enabling high precision performance.
SkyStriker’s electric propulsion offers a low acoustic signature, allowing covert operations at low altitude. As a silent, invisible, and surprise attacker, SkyStriker delivers the utmost in precision and reliability, providing a critical advantage in the modern battlefield.
Elbit Systems says that the system is a cost-effective LM that is capable of long-range, precise tactical strikes. SkyStriker provides manoeuvrable troops and Special Forces with direct-fire aerial-precision capabilities.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
