General Chereshnya copied Wild Hornets’ interceptor drone: what company says
Drone Industry
Ukrainian company Wild Hornets, which manufactures drones for the Defence Forces, has said it has obtained a Bullet interceptor drone produced by the company General Chereshnya and considers it a 100% copy of its own Sting UAV.
Wild Hornets reported this on social media platform X.
"A full copy of our STING drone, produced by General Chereshnya under the name Bullet, has come into our hands. Evidence that this manufacturer has copied our design 100% is also posted on its social media pages," Wild Hornets said.
The company also noted that General Chereshnya never requested permission to copy the design, and no other manufacturer has received such permission either. Wild Hornets stressed that it will not repair or service drones that copy its solutions.
Blogger, activist and volunteer Serhii Sternenko responded to the statement, saying he had received numerous complaints from the military about General Chereshnya’s drones, dev.ua noted.
"Unfortunately, billions of hryvnias from the state budget were spent on GC (General Chereshnya - ed.). When it comes specifically to FPV drones against ground targets, this money has simply been thrown away. This is a loss for the country. These are combat missions that were not completed. And it’s extra pressure on us, because we then have to supply quality FPV drones instead of junk put together with major flaws," Sternenko said.
He added that he personally passed feedback from drone operators to representatives of General Chereshnya, but no changes were made to the products.
"Now they have also started making knock-offs of other drones. And by the way, these very knock-offs have already been purchased several times by individual local authorities," Sternenko noted.
In a comment to dev.ua, representatives of General Chereshnya denied the accusations.
"The form factor of the product is not unique and does not ‘belong to one manufacturer’. This is not an exclusive invention of one Ukrainian producer – it is a universal tail-sitter VTOL configuration used worldwide. Similar drones are made by many global manufacturers: RAM-1 (Czech Republic), BLAZE by Latvian company Origin Robotics, Israel’s Hunter Eagle, Poland’s SKYctrl. What really matters is that the drone differs in its internal components. And here we know that ours are original and were created in line with the clear requirements and vision of the military with whom we developed this product," General Chereshnya said.
The company also said it cooperates with more than a hundred military units and receives feedback from the Defence Forces, and that it provides "full support for drones from all manufacturers" whose systems are brought to its service team by the military. The statement stresses that each of the company’s drones is an original, codified product created by the General Chereshnya team.
Earlier reports said that General Chereshnya had supplied hundreds of interceptor drones free of charge to Defence Forces units to destroy enemy Shahed-type strike UAVs.
