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It might have missed international attention, but the CEO of Rheinmetall (Germany's biggest weapons manufacturer) made a huge faux pas recently, dismissing Ukraining drone manufacturers as "housewives". Here's the response from the founder of Ukrainians biggest drone manufacturer. Absolutely delightful:
Dear Mr. Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall,
When you referred to Ukrainian drone manufacturers as âUkrainian housewives with 3D printersâ you revealed just how deeply the European defense establishment still fails to understand the nature of modern warfare.
This is not about emotion. It is about battlefield reality.
Here are the facts your industry refuses to acknowledge:
In 2025 alone, Ukrainian drones carried out 819,737 confirmed strikes. They caused 90 percent of all Russian combat losses, more than all other weapons systems combined.
TAF alone produces up to 100k FPV drones monthly. In any given 90-day period, my companyâs products alone achieve more confirmed strikes than your entire fleet of equipment has across its full combat history in every conflict. And most importantly, I built this company and achieved these results in two years, not fifty. Think about that.
Our drones generate more kinetic effect in three months than your flagship platforms have in half a century.
Why? Because the battlefield has changed, and your business model has not.
Russian electronic warfare has made GPS-guided Western munitions such as Excalibur and GMLRS nearly ineffective.
Expensive and complex systems designed for wars with air superiority and traditional peer-to-peer combat have become easy prey for drones costing $500, attacking them from above.
The cost-to-effect ratio has been turned upside down: one 120 mm Rheinmetall shell or one anti-tank missile costs more than a dozen of our drones, and yet our drones still win.
This is not a âLego game.â It is industrial Darwinism in real time. We iterate every week. We print parts in basements and ship 100k strike systems per month, while your engineers still require three to five years and hundreds of millions of euros in certification costs for even a minor upgrade.
The war in Ukraine is not a temporary anomaly. It is the first true drone-industrial war. And it has already proven that outdated European platforms, no matter how expensive or âseriousâ they may seem, are becoming less and less relevant unless they integrate the very technologies you mock.
So when you say, âthis is not innovation,â I hear something else: âWe do not want to admit that the future is being written in Ukrainian workshops, not in Düsseldorf boardrooms.â
#MadeByHousewives is trending for a reason. Because these âhousewivesâ destroy more enemy equipment every month than entire European armies do in full campaigns.
And they do it while your industry continues to sell 20th-century solutions at 21st-century prices.
The invitation remains open, Mr. Papperger. Stop laughing at the kitchen table.
Come and learn how tomorrowâs war is actually being fought. Because the next time someone asks, âWho needs tanks in the age of drones?â, the answer may be simpler than you think: Whoever still believes in 1979 will lose to whoever is building in 2026.
With respect, but with facts,
Oleksandr Yakovenko âUkrainian housewivesâ
Founder TAF
Rule of thumb: take the opposite position of Germany. Herr Schmerz got ratioed big-time. ð
I am a reporter on the ground. Let me help you understand what is happening. Israel killed almost 500 men, women and children (all civilians) and committed horrific acts of ecocide and ethnic cleansing since the first day of the implementation of the ceasefire. Per UNIFIL, Israel violated the ceasefire 15,400 times. Hezbollah never violated it or attacked the occupied territories in any way. Hereâs a short video, a mere fraction of what the year was like before this new war started. Youâre a government official. Inform yourself.
