Game of drones: can Ukraine pull ahead?
The Economist Podcasts
Wed, August 30, 2023
Podchat Summary

Episode Description: Ukraine's Drone Development and Concerns of Russian Aggression

In this episode, we delve into Ukraine's recent developments in drone technology and their aim to strike back at Russia. Over the past year, Ukraine has been focusing on enhancing its drone capabilities to counter Russia's long-range strike capability. The country's drone development team has successfully created the Morok drone, equipped with a heavy payload, high speed, and the ability to strike targets over several hundred kilometers.

One of the key challenges Ukraine faces in scaling up its drone program is finding aviation specialists and navigating through bureaucracy and corruption. Despite these obstacles, Ukraine has developed algorithms that allow their drones to bypass Russian electronic warfare and air defense assets.

Meanwhile, Russia has been stockpiling drones and cruise missiles, raising concerns of a potential campaign on Ukraine's infrastructure. Ukraine is investing heavily in drone technology, but its output still lags behind Russia's.

Switching gears, we also discuss efforts to curb tax avoidance in tax havens like the British Virgin Islands. There has been progress in reducing the number of shell companies, but the British Virgin Islands is resisting the requirement to publicly disclose the names of company owners.

Additionally, we explore global efforts to reduce tax avoidance by big companies, which have been slow-moving. Despite these challenges, progress is being made in tackling tax avoidance.

Lastly, we examine the recent change in language policy in Spain's Lower House of Parliament. This symbolic move aims to recognize the country's linguistic diversity by allowing the use of Catalan, Basque, and Galician in official contexts. However, the change has sparked controversy, with some viewing it as divisive and a reward for separatist parties. The next steps involve consulting all parties on how to implement the new language policy.

Original Show Notes

Three months into the counteroffensive, the military is reaping the fruits of several months of drone development. But as the war continues, will it be able to scale up its capacity and outpace Russia? New international laws cracking down on Caribbean tax havens seem to be working (10:03). And politicians reignite an old debate on official language use in Spain (17:21).


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