The chief designer of Zala Aero offered to re-equip the shopping center for the production of drones

The chief designer of the subsidiary of the Kalashnikov concern (part of Rostec) Zala Aero, Alexander Zakharov, at a meeting with employees of the enterprise, proposed to convert shopping centers selling Western brands to the production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Zakharov’s speech to the Zala Aero team took place on Wednesday in Izhevsk, a source in the military-industrial complex told Vedomosti. A representative of Zala Aero confirmed to Vedomosti that the chief designer spoke at a private event on August 24 and proposed converting shopping centers that used to sell Western brands to the production of drones. Vedomosti also sent a request to Kalashnikov.

“As a person born and working in a city of gunsmiths, it was bittersweet for me to see how powerful factories built in Soviet times turned into shopping centers one after another,” Zakharov said (quoted from the NerV Telegram channel). – But there is a way to quickly and repeatedly increase the production of unmanned vehicles. We have developed a concept for the re-equipment of shopping centers, which before the start of the SVO traded mainly in goods of Western brands, into factories for the conveyor production of three types of domestic drones.”

According to Zakharov, the re-equipment of the shopping center for the production of UAVs will save jobs and tax deductions, as well as increase the supply of drones themselves to the army.

Zala Aero is a subsidiary of the Kalashnikov concern, which is part of the Rostec state corporation, which develops UAVs. In 2019, the company introduced a series of KUB, Lancet-1, and Lancet-2 kamikaze drones. In 2021 the company developed “air mining” system using “Lancets”. Before the opening of the Army-2022 military-technical forum, Zala Aero demonstrated a serial sample of the ZALA 421-24 quadcopter UAV.

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