THE RESULTS OF THE XII EURASIAN INTERNATIONAL FORUM "UNMANNED AVIATION-2025" HAVE BEEN SUMMED UP
« BackThe 12th Eurasian International Forum "Unmanned Aviation-2025" was held in Moscow. It once again confirmed the status of the main international industry event in the field of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the Eurasian space. Traditionally, the Forum was attended by representatives of ministries and departments, organizations of Russia, countries of the Eurasian region, including the countries of the EAEU, the CIS, Asia, Africa and other regions of the world.
"Unmanned Aviation-2025" is the largest annual Eurasian international business platform for professional discussion of global trends and innovative solutions, issues of regulatory and technical regulation of UAS.
The forum "Unmanned Aviation-2025" was attended by more than 250 delegates: representatives of the Interstate Aviation Committee, the Eurasian Economic Commission, the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defense, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters, Rosaviatsia, Rosleskhoz, the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia and other federal authorities, representatives of national authorities of the EAEU and CIS member states.
Also participating were JSC GLONASS, GTLK, Russian Post, Aviation Register of Russia, Rosatom State Corporation, Rostec State Corporation, Azimut Scientific and Technical Center, Gonets Satellite System, Gazprom Space Systems, Gazprom Shelfproekt, Ingosstrakh, BAS LLC, BAS Consortium, Unmanned Systems Group, Radar MMS, BAS Glory Air, Drone Solutions, other market leaders in the production of UAS and their components, developers of digital solutions in the field of UAS, UAS operators, industry and business associations, leading research organizations and the media.
In his welcoming speech, Chairman of the Interstate Aviation Committee Oleg Storchevoy noted:
"In a short period of time, the unmanned aircraft system has evolved from an experimental development into a powerful tool used in almost all areas of human activity: cargo transportation, environmental monitoring, agriculture, rescue operations and many other areas"
The rapid growth of unmanned technologies requires a serious approach to aircraft safety issues and the effective integration of UAS into the common airspace. The problems of safe implementation of unmanned vehicles require joint efforts of all stakeholders: manufacturers, operators, regulators and the scientific community.
The forum "Unmanned Aviation 2025" opens a unique opportunity to discuss current issues in the industry, share experiences and practices in implementing modern technologies, propose innovative solutions and jointly determine further steps to ensure reliable interaction between unmanned and manned aircraft."
The Department of Transport and Infrastructure of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) welcomed the Forum opening with the following:
"Speaking about unmanned civil aviation, it is impossible not to note that at the moment it is one of the main drivers of economic development in many countries, including the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union. Unmanned technologies make it possible to increase the safety and efficiency of services provided."
Anton Koren, head of the Consortium Transport Strategy Center (TSC), outlined the near future of the industry and the main goal of its development. He noted that the UAS industry in "our large country needs to become not only import-substituted, but also import-independent. We will achieve this in the next decade," he emphasized.
In his report, Anton Koren paid special attention to the need to refine and develop application scenarios, with funding for these developments by development institutions and ministries. He noted that in practical cases of the TSRT there are already up to 60 successfully assessed scenarios, while in the long term experts see 100 scenarios of application, which should, among other things, be financed with state support in terms of UAS production and operation.
The forum also discussed international unmanned aviation, in which projects are being implemented in various areas, by ICAO and other international organizations. Currently, the development of international civil unmanned aviation is being discussed at the CIS Executive Committee. Documents are being prepared, including with the participation of the Interstate Aviation Committee, which should become the future of regulating the development of international UAS flights. The Eurasian Economic Commission pays great attention to unmanned transport. A project for an international Russia-China hub with UAS transportation has been announced.
Sameer Abdul Azeez, Counselor of the Embassy of India in the Russian Federation, spoke about the prospects of the $30 billion market, the liberal rules for investors proposed by the Indian government, and the specifics of UAS development in the country, where Russian investors with a component base are expected.
“Until 2014, drone management in India was the exclusive prerogative of government agencies. The situation began to change in May 2014, when a restaurant in Mumbai first delivered pizza to customers using a drone. This generated a lot of interest, but was banned by the police as an unauthorized delivery method. It took 7 years to legalize drones.
In 2021, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Rules were issued, which liberalized the use of drones and ensured the rapid growth of their ecosystem and their own developments in the country, supported today by the Government of India. The key aspect of these rules is that the entire policy is built on trust in all civilian unmanned aerial vehicles weighing up to 500 kilograms, and everything that weighs more than 500 kilograms is subject to the same rules as manned aircraft. At the same time, all drones must have unique identification numbers, and their owners must have insurance policies." Samir Abdul Aziz, answering a question from moderator Anton Koren, also spoke about investment conditions for Russian UAS manufacturers and operators, and what export opportunities are available for Russian companies.
Claudius Mateko, President of the Drone Club of the University of Zimbabwe, spoke about how the drone industry is represented in Africa and what projects might be of interest to Russian investors.
“Investments in the drone industry have been going on since 2015. Currently, there are four companies and five industries in Zimbabwe that are related to the drone industry. Drones are used in agriculture, mining, infrastructure projects and wildlife conservation.
Most drones are currently imported to Zimbabwe, and then they undergo minor customization in the country. We expect assistance from foreign companies in production and the organization of local branches. In order to enter the Zimbabwean market, Russian companies need to contact the regulatory authorities and establish contact with them.”
A representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ruslan Nikolaev, reported that a national leadership project is being implemented until 2030, which is carried out in five key areas, from infrastructure to personnel, within the framework of which a list of state support instruments is provided, including assistance to localization, reverse engineering programs, subsidizing flight hours, and discounts on domestic UAVs. This year, seven regions of Russia received a subsidy from the state for the creation of regional infrastructure.
The state and experts are currently paying special attention to finding economically effective scenarios for the use of drones and are preparing for their further replication. Projects with the greatest economic effect will receive support from the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
A representative of the Aviation Equipment Certification Department of the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) Ivan Tyurin reported:
"Certification of aviation equipment will soon undergo changes if the government approves them. The changes will concern the permission of certification flights with the UAS developer-manufacturer itself without the participation of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the procedures for UAS certification and certification of manufacturing organizations will be simplified.
Among the important tasks that the aviation authorities of Russia and other countries will have to solve is the certification of hybrid engines containing gas turbine and electric engines. It is necessary to determine what in this case is considered an aircraft engine in relation to the terminology that is present in the regulatory legal documentation."
Alexey Varyatchenko, CEO of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, shared his vision of the market.
"The dynamics of the UAS market growth is about 20-27% growth annually. At the same time, if the largest market segment in terms of volume - monitoring, shows low growth, then agriculture receives enormous development potential and within 5-7 years will approach the volume of monitoring. In the future, we expect that the agricultural segment will significantly exceed the monitoring one, since many Russian manufacturers have certified their agrodrones. Overall, the market will undergo significant changes in 2025.
Our state-owned operator opened in 2023 and has been actively operating flights since 2024. We operate in 44 regions of Russia, and the northern direction for the oil and gas industry will open in 2025. We are working to create a support and branch network.
The fleet currently consists of more than 300 drones from various manufacturers and applications. Our main areas of activity are agriculture and cargo transportation."
Georgy Bautin, Head of the Transport Management Directorate, Russian Post, devoted his speech to the logistics direction of UAS application.
“The industry is moving faster than all the others. Today, there is a shortage of couriers and the cost of their services is growing; in the future, this market will amount to tens of billions of rubles per year. It is important to note that devices for mass logistics, which yesterday did not meet the needs of the economy, have increased their resource by 10 times in a year and a half, the cost has decreased by 1.5 times, and the cost of ownership of the device - by 12 times.
However, a number of components still require revision, first of all, it is necessary to solve two main problems of mass logistics - price and delivery speed. At the first stage, the cost of using unmanned vehicles should be equal to the average price of delivery by classic aviation, at the second - with the cost of ground delivery.
The market for heavy devices will be the most difficult. It will require changes in terms of regulation, safety, integration."
Viktor Solomentsev, Deputy Director General for Research and Development, Azimuth Production Company, focused on ensuring flight safety.
“Currently, several research projects are being carried out to open the air for unmanned aircraft. Identification, control systems, collision avoidance, navigation and zoning have been completed. The Aurora successfully completed a test flight in the airspace without closing the sky, with the manned and unmanned vehicles in the sky at the same time.
The main goal of the developments is to safely open the airspace for unmanned vehicles. They are designed to ultimately create a safe system in which everyone will fly, see each other, know who is flying, and will be integrated into the overall architecture in accordance with the application scenarios in certain operating conditions.”
Sergey Kukarev, Head of Aviation Projects, JSC GLONASS, developing the proposals voiced by Viktor Solomentsev, noted that unmanned vehicles are an alternative concept of the 21st century, which covers many areas of activity and is not limited to airspace.
“The future drone sphere includes objects on the ground, hybrid drones that move both on water and take to the air. It will have to operate in a trusted data transmission environment according to uniform standards of information exchange with a single legal field. We can wait for the state to determine the future of the system and inform us, or we can unite and, based on the results of experiments, without budgetary costs, we will propose options and modifications ourselves.”
The speaker shared the results of the project in the Kaluga Region: “Over the past year, we have developed a satellite navigation and drone identification device, created an integrated SIM card so that it cannot be seized, and implemented a cryptographic protection tool into it. On May 22, 2025, we have an experiment planned in the Kaluga Region, which will transmit secure information to the closed circuit of the GLONASS State Information System from an unmanned aerial vehicle using satellite navigation equipment with built-in crypto-SIM cards. In the future, the information will be transmitted to the regional situational headquarters, civil air defense sky control systems, Rostransnadzor, the 113 and Jupiter systems. The additional control we have proposed will serve as a tool for lifting regional restrictions."
Until June 1, 2025, the Government is collecting proposals from experts on the identification of unmanned aerial vehicles, the corresponding Resolution is expected before September 1, 2025. From March 1, 2026, all drones will have identifiers.
Alexander Terentyev, Deputy General Director, UAS Infrastructure Operator LLC, spoke about the most important strategic tasks of the industry, the solution of which will help the regions. "In fact, we are already on the verge of a friendly conflict with manned aircraft, the same helicopters.
Since we are a region where up to 20% of all flights of the Russian Federation are carried out and where the highest density of airspace for manned aircraft is, we know that the first task is to ensure safety and a cost-effective model for using drones.
Therefore, we are developing infrastructure to minimize the time it takes to obtain a flight permit and ensure the possibility of using unmanned vehicles along with manned ones. It is important to provide a legislative and regulatory framework for this that takes into account the differences in technologies. We must work on developing application scenarios. In addition, it is important to take a more differentiated approach to the mechanism for compensating the cost of a flight hour, otherwise the services will not be in demand."
Denis Baryshnikov, CEO, BAS Consortium, drew attention to the fact that the industry today represents a producer market to a greater extent than the consumer market.
“The industry is more prepared for the implementation of BAS than customers, and the gap between them will increase after the end of the SVO. We must be ready for this. The market already offers about 100 monitoring scenarios, a third of which are already presented on the market, the rest have not yet entered it due to economic reasons, the lack of a regulatory framework or technology. The monitoring direction is growing by 15-20% per year, while agriculture is growing by 50% per year.
The oil and gas direction is actively developing in logistics, where in 2-4 years end-to-end R&D will be ready, and in 3-4 years there will be devices that will be able not only to carry out missions in hard-to-reach regions of Russia on Gazprom’s order, but also to meet the needs of operators such as Russian Post.
At the last mile, the problem is not in the devices. The main thing is control and management of the sky. As soon as we have formed the infrastructure for control and management of airspace in small classes over megacities, the problem will be solved.
Denis Baryshnikov also noted that the investment opportunities from Asia, Africa, and other regions of the world presented at the Unmanned Aviation - 2025 forum are the areas where Russian suppliers can get a dynamic impetus for business development.
Vladimir Voronov, Head of the Advanced Research Department of the Unmanned Aviation Division of UZGA, shared his expert opinion and experience in using artificial intelligence in unmanned aviation:
“There are no significant differences in the operation of artificial intelligence in manned and unmanned aviation. These areas need to be developed in general, without focusing on any specific tasks.
The most serious obstacle to the introduction of an artificial intelligence system in aviation is the lack of trust in artificial intelligence. There are three areas to overcome it: eliminating unreliability, the human factor of interaction with the artificial intelligence system, and risk minimization."
In terms of artificial intelligence, the delegates noted the importance of further development of the regulatory framework, as well as the development of a common AI strategy in civil aviation in terms of large-size UAS.
The Unmanned Aviation 2025 Forum opened a unique opportunity for other speakers and delegates to discuss current issues in the industry, share experiences and practices in implementing modern technologies, offer innovative solutions, and jointly determine further steps to ensure reliable interaction between unmanned and manned aircraft.
Following the plenary session, thematic sessions, and a special panel discussion devoted to discussing solutions that can lead to increased efficiency in the UAS industry development, both strategically and in the near future, a number of opinions from key experts were expressed.
In particular, the experts noted in their reports:
Dmitry Fandeev, CEO, Digital Transport Platform (DTP) / NALETAY.RF
“We expect the business environment to become more active soon, which will occur after the formation of measurable forecast demand, achievement of technological and economic efficiency, creation of clear and transparent rules for end consumers. Information about all this can be found on our resource.
The NALETAY.RF platform should subsequently become a multifunctional platform that accumulates all points of attraction of technology and all market participants. Here you can buy a drone, insure it, take an educational program, read the latest analytics.”
Sergey Chekanov, Technical Director for Control and Navigation Systems, BAS Glory Air LLC, spoke about the advantages of implementing a new system for radiation monitoring of the area, which is especially relevant during periods of increased fire hazard.
"The complex can conduct flights and monitor the radiation situation in any area in a virtually autonomous mode and influence hydrometeorological processes. It is equipped with a system for installing checkers either for acceleration or, conversely, for creating thunderclouds."
Igor Gladun, Head of Marketing Communications at YVR (United Vehicle Robotics, Belarus), noted that Belarus has a concept of "experimental aviation" and the underlying regulatory framework that simplifies the design and operation of conversion products.
The company is capable of converting manned helicopters into unmanned ones.
The company manages to convert heavy manned Mi-2 helicopters into UAS. "DroMi", with a takeoff weight of over 3 tons, became the first unmanned vehicle of this class in the post-Soviet space."
The forum included plenary and thematic sessions on more than 100 topical issues in the field of unmanned aviation.
Also, within the framework of the XII Eurasian International Forum "Unmanned Aviation-2025", many other issues were raised, including staffing the industry, the use of artificial intelligence in the unmanned aviation industry, the preparation of a regulatory framework to limit the noise impact of drones, UAS certification, as well as other strategically important events in the current conditions.
The results of the forum in terms of proposals and recommendations for the development of the UAS industry will be presented to international organizations and federal authorities.
Within the framework of the XII Eurasian International Forum "Unmanned Aviation - 2025", the Award Ceremony of the Eurasian Prize in the field of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) was held. The winners of the 2025 award are: ZALA Group of Companies, JSC GTLK, BAS Glory Air LLC, JSC NPP Radar MMS, YVR / United Vehicle Robotics (Republic of Belarus), Corson, Unmanned Systems Group of Companies, JSC GLONASS, NTC Azimut, SIGNAL-BIT, JSC Satellite System GONETS, Computer Vision Laboratory, Sakhalin Region. Read more about the award and the achievements of the winners in the news section of the forum on the website www.aviacenter.events. The winners of the Eurasian UAS Award were determined based on the results of an expert assessment in accordance with a list of objective criteria, qualitative characteristics of the companies' activities based on the results of the past year.
The Eurasian Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Award was established to reward developers and operators, UAS service providers, as well as suppliers of components and software for the UAS industry and other enterprises in the Eurasian region that have demonstrated the best results in public, scientific, industrial, commercial or other activities in the UAS field and innovative developments for the industry.
Also, within the framework of the Unmanned Aviation - 2025 forum, an exhibition and presentation of innovative solutions from enterprises in the unmanned aircraft systems industry was held, such as GTLK / NALETAY.RF, ZALA Group of Companies, BAS Glory Air LLC, Unmanned Systems Group of Companies, AZIMUT PC JSC, GNSS Plus, NPC Solnechny, NTC Aerogeophysics, NETHER, SIGNAL-BIT, Saratov National Research State University named after N.G. Chernyshevsky (SSU), VISOM Enterprise, Corson, Computer Vision Laboratory, and other organizations.
The Eurasian International Forum "Unmanned Aviation" is held annually with the aim of comprehensively discussing current issues in the field of production and use of unmanned aerial vehicles, consolidating domestic and international experience, developing recommendations for the effective development of unmanned aviation, as well as presenting innovative products of UAS developer companies, manufacturers and suppliers, exchanging practical experience, discussing development paths and needs of economic sectors, developing recommendations for ministries and departments in the field of development and improvement of the industry regulatory framework and technical regulation, developing international solutions in the field of UAS in the Eurasian space.
The XII Eurasian International Forum "Unmanned Aviation-2025" was held with the support and participation of federal and regional authorities of the Russian Federation, national authorities of the EAEU countries, industry associations, and leading research organizations.
The organizer of the forum is the Center for Strategic Research in Civil Aviation (AVIACENTER).
The strategic partner of the forum: the Transport Strategy Center (TSC).
The general sponsor of the forum: BAS Glory Air.
The general information partner: the official printed organ of the Ministry of Transport
of the Russian Federation - the Transport of Russia newspaper.
The next forum "Unmanned Aviation - 2026" will be held on April 23, 2026. Early preferential registration on the website www.aviacenter.events.
The Consortium, which includes the Center for Strategic Research in Civil Aviation (AVIACENTER) and the Transport Strategy Center (TSC), is included in the RAEX rating of the largest consulting groups in the field of strategic planning and organizational development. The Consortium is a leader in consulting aviation projects.
The Consortium unites the first consulting centers in Russia, the EAEU and the CIS countries, whose product line includes more than 100 types of professional services in the field of industry strategic planning, management and investment consulting in the field of manned and unmanned aviation, as well as organizations for the design of aviation, transport and logistics infrastructure.
Under the leadership and with the participation of the Consortium, more than 400 strategic projects were implemented in the interests of UAS manufacturers and operators, aviation industrial holdings, airlines, airports, other enterprises in the industry, federal and regional authorities. A large number of investment projects are being implemented in the Eurasian region based on the professional justifications of the TSC Consortium.