The end of the DJI Mavic 3 era. How will the military live without the main Chinese drone and where are the Ukrainian analogues?

The Ukrainian military will soon be left without the main tool for detecting the enemy and destroying it with the help of "drops". We are talking about civilian Mavic 3 drones, hundreds of thousands of which are in service with the Defense Forces and for which military personnel and volunteers most often raise money.

The Chinese company DJI has stopped producing them since the beginning of 2025. All Mavic 3s that are being delivered to distributors in different parts of the world are leftover stocks.

Instead, DJI introduced a new drone in the series – the Mavic 4 Pro. It is intended to replace one of the company's most popular drones in the world, logically continuing the series of easy-to-use and versatile drones.

It would seem that there is no problem, but the issue is not only with the drones themselves, but also with the infrastructure set up for them. Remote controls, antennas, batteries, software, mounting systems - much of this will have to be replaced.

In addition, the political factor remains risky. Zelensky has already stated that China is limiting the sale of drones of this type to Europe, but at the same time is helping Russia more.

This raises two logical questions: how painful will the disappearance of the DJI Mavic 3 be for the Defense Forces and why, given our dependence on China, a close partner of Russia, has Ukraine never managed to create its own analogue of the Mavic, despite having over 200 drone manufacturers?

"Mavic 3" is a thing of the past

The third-generation Mavic is the basis of tactical reconnaissance and the most massive drone in the Ukrainian Defense Forces. There are hundreds of thousands of them in combat and training units. This drone is the basis of tactical reconnaissance. It performs reconnaissance on the front line and destroys enemy manpower and lightly armored vehicles using a system of drop-offs - mounts on which various ammunition is suspended.

As told the state technocluster Brave1, the need for one battalion in various models of DJI Mavic drones can reach several hundred per month. All because they are very often lost. There are combat losses, losses during operation in adverse weather conditions, losses during crew training, errors when handling the drone and failures in the operation of electronics.

What sets Mavic drones apart from other UAVs, including the Matrice series, is that they are semi-professional, meaning they are designed for ordinary users without any significant professional training. The drone operator can make their first flights after just 3-4 days of training.

The main thing about DJI drones is that you can get them here and now. The colossal production rate by European standards of hundreds of thousands or even millions of drones per year has reduced the issue not to the lack of equipment on the market, but to the availability of money.

An ecosystem has formed around this drone. These include professionally trained pilots and training centers, purchased antennas, additional batteries, reset systems, replaceable propellers and legs, repair components, and more.

Expert in the field of electronic warfare and electronic intelligence Serhiy "Flash" Beskrestnov, in a comment to UNIAN, noted that the Defense Forces of Ukraine still have a sufficient number of third-party "Maviks", which will be possible to disassemble for spare parts and repair. For a certain time, this number of components and units should be enough. "Oboronka" interlocutors in the unmanned systems units of the SOU agree with this.

According to an aerial reconnaissance specialist from the Hell Hornets special unit, large volumes of Mavics are already being purchased on the secondary market. His unit uses drones after several years of operation in Europe or the USA. For example, our interlocutor could pay about 40 thousand UAH for one used daytime drone. At the same time, the price of a new daytime drone will realistically start at 90 thousand. UAH. A Mavic with a thermal imager could be purchased on the secondary market for 80-100 thousand UAH, when the military has to pay over 180 thousand UAH for a new one.

However, the price of the third "Mavics" is already gradually increasing , and this is becoming the reason for the disruption of state procurement. Thus, since the beginning of 2025, the State Service for Special Communications, according to "Censor", has already disrupted tenders for the purchase of Mavic 3T and Mavic 3E drones at least four times. This is due to the expected price of the drones being set, which is much lower than the current market price. For example, the state planned to purchase Mavic 3E drones for 96 thousand UAH, counting on a decrease in the price at the auction. In reality, the market price of these drones has already exceeded 100 thousand UAH.

Now all new drones are being delivered to the front from warehouses, and the main question remains: how to switch to a new type of reconnaissance drone in conditions of intense combat? Both the Russians and Ukrainians will have to rebuild the entire Mavic 3 ecosystem in a matter of months.

The enemy army is also facing the problem of the lack of Mavic 3 and its components . They have already focused on purchasing large volumes of components for drones that remain on the market. The enemy is probably still moving forward in his favor. In the captured territories, Russian units find hundreds of downed or abandoned Mavics, which they disassemble and use as donors of spare parts for the existing fleet. The enemy's military bloggers write about this in their Telegram channels.

According to the military and UAV experts surveyed by Oboronka, spare parts for the third Mavics will be available for purchase by the end of 2025. However, this will be accompanied by a gradual increase in price and the possible appearance of a significant number of defective spare parts on the market.

So is there an alternative to the Mavic 3 drones? Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is the already mentioned DJI Mavic 4 Pro, introduced this month. It was because of the start of its production that the company discontinued the release of the previous model. The price of the new generation drone starts at €2,169, or about UAH 100,000. We are talking about the basic configuration.

The DJI Mavic 4 Pro retains the three-camera configuration from its predecessor and has the OcuSync O4+ data transfer system. The main improvement in the drone is the 100-megapixel main camera, developed in collaboration with the Swedish Hasselblad. It supports 6K shooting at 60fps, slow-motion video at 4K/120fps, and has up to 16 stops of dynamic range.

Another option to replace the Mavic 3T could be the Autel EVO Max 4T drones. A number of military units are already purchasing and mastering these drones. However, Autel drones have a number of drawbacks. First of all, they are at least UAH 100,000 more expensive, which is important in conditions of limited financial resources.

There is another option – the professional DJI Matrice 4T. But this product from DJI is much more complex, complicated and expensive compared to the Mavic 3 created for the everyday person. The new Matrice 4T has other programs, control systems, remote controls, antenna complexes, batteries, cables, etc. It is positioned as a professional drone for industrial tasks.

It has a new and more advanced architecture, much more stable communication and even better optical zoom. In addition, the drone can navigate in space not by GPS, but by the object on which it is focused. Moreover, it can keep it "in sight" at a distance of up to 500 meters, while the Mavic 3 "holds" the target only up to 50 m. This is a drone of a completely different level, it is an option for professional special forces. For ordinary soldiers on the front lines, many of its functions are simply excessive.

The issue of switching to a new drone also rests on the factor of the presence of military firmware, that is, software. It is possible to install such a firmware on Mavic 3 drones. One of the most popular versions is called "1001". At one time, Ukrainian specialists "intercepted" it from the Russians and integrated it into their drones.

What is the essence of military firmware? In fact, it allows you to integrate a number of functions necessary for military operation into it. For example, if a drone has restrictions on operation in a certain territory, the firmware transfers it to another country or even to another continent, where there are no restrictions on operation. If the Mavic loses communication, the program will automatically raise it to a higher altitude so that it can restore the signal from the operator. With military firmware, the Mavic will fly according to the compass, and in the event of loss of communication during takeoff, it will return to the starting point.

There is no guarantee yet that DJI will leave vulnerabilities in the software of the new Mavic 4Pro and allow the integration of military firmware. According to Flash, the standard "1001" is no longer suitable for it.

Officially, DJI opposes the use of its product in military conflicts. However, in reality, the company is unlikely to want to completely close itself off from military modifications and give up the large profits that the Russian-Ukrainian war brings. The only question is how long it will take to develop and implement a new solution.

The search for alternatives to the Mavic 3, the shortage of drones on the market, and the headache of incorporating a new model into the frontline infrastructure once again illustrate the eternal problem of the Ukrainian drone industry - we are critically dependent on supplies from China of both finished drones and their components.

According to the State Customs Service, in January-March 2025 alone, Ukraine imported 127.8 thousand civilian drones. At the same time, 98% of this quantity was from China.

And even if the restrictions on the export of drones, which China has repeatedly announced, have not in practice closed our access to drones, Ukraine will not be able to do anything with the change in the business plans of key manufacturers, such as the withdrawal of the most convenient and popular model from production.

And if China does decide to finally side with Russia and put up even more obstacles to the purchase of the new generation Mavics, then there will be not so many alternatives left. Therefore, logic once again leads us to talk about our own production of drones in this segment.

When will the Ukrainian "Maviс" be available?

Ukraine has already learned to make high-quality and inexpensive solutions in the field of FPV drones. But there is a big difference between a reconnaissance drone and a strike drone, especially a kamikaze drone.

According to Brave1, a specialist in unmanned aerial vehicles, currently about ten teams within the cluster are working on creating an analogue of "Maviс", which have flying prototypes and are actively working on their models. At the same time, none of the developers have yet managed to come close to the level of the Chinese UAV.

"In fact, making a drone that simply flies stably and somehow shoots is not a problem. But making it small, quiet, with a cool camera, and most importantly, with an interface that even a child can use, is a challenge. And so, both in general and separately, all these components, except for the interface and camera, have already been implemented on many drones," says Oleksiy Babenko, director of the Vyriy Drone company.

Ukrainian developers also have problems with communication systems and a network of data about drone flights. The latter is necessary for analyzing the behavior of a drone in different weather and operating conditions. DJI, for example, collects data from drones around the world, having the ability to analyze all this information and make improvements to the software. Ukrainian companies do not have such an opportunity. In their work, they rely on oral recommendations and written feedback from military units. It takes more time to process this data, and the sample does not allow to identify all the shortcomings, as a Chinese company can do with its product.

"DJI is a super product company. Their methods of working with clients are absolutely perfect. Every button, every joystick is made so that a person can pick it up and immediately intuitively fly. It's really difficult to do this, because it involves a lot of research, experiments, and changes," says Oleksiy Babenko.

As Brave1, a specialist, tells Oborontsi, most of the Ukrainian Mavic projects are based on a 10- or 12-inch frame, which is used to produce FPV drones. Each team manufactures its frame independently, which on the one hand increases its independence from purchasing a component base, but on the other hand, will increase the cost of its production.

Flight controllers are purchased from the Chinese Matek Systems. The drone's stabilization system demonstrates good performance in combat conditions, but cannot repeat the level of DJI. This is a problem for operators, who will have to pay more attention to the control and stability of the drone in flight. As for the cameras, unnamed Chinese, European and American analogues of Swedish Hasselblad cameras are purchased for DJI drones, but they are more expensive than the mass-produced solutions of the Chinese flagship.

The advantage of Ukrainian solutions may be their own software, which is immediately developed for military needs. For example, the developer of the Ukrainian drone "Shmavik" told Forbes in an interview that he immediately built into the UAV software an automatic frequency change to counter enemy electronic warfare and the ability to switch to manual control when obstacles are detected in the flight program.

For testing the drone in combat conditions, the company has manufactured 300 "Shmaviks". It will manufacture engines, control systems, and later - cameras of its own design, thus bringing the production of components for "Shmavik" in Poland to 80-90%.

The developers planned to start producing 2,500 drones per month last summer. In practice, these drones are shipped both under government contracts and to military units, but they have not yet become truly mass-produced.

Another development that could become an alternative to the Chinese one is the Ukrainian drone "Linza". The reconnaissance version of this drone is based on a bomber drone, which is capable of carrying ammunition weighing up to 2 kg. The UAV is equipped with a thermal imaging camera and is designed to be controlled from cover. Currently, the drone manufacturer plans to improve the technology of its product by optimizing many components.

The disadvantage is that most Ukrainian projects are based on developments from FPV drones or bomber drones, and are not developed from scratch as a convenient and unpretentious reconnaissance drone.

The delay in the development of drones is also influenced by the shortage of personnel. There is currently a shortage of professional engineers due to mobilization, outflow abroad and high competition in the market. However, even with these problems, work on an analogue of "Mavic" continues, says Oleksiy Babenko. His development team is currently working on a drone in the Mavic 3 niche.

"What will be the advantages? This is a flight time four times longer. This is a comparable camera, that is, in the first version it will be worse than in the Mavic 3 Pro, but better than in the Mavic 3 Classic, but in the second version it will be comparable to the Mavic 3 Pro camera. Then there is a more stable communication system, because we do not have the limitations that a civilian company has. We have a much more stable connection, because we are basically creating it for work on the front, not for civilian life. These are different algorithms of work with different suppression algorithms. And the next advantage is silence. It will be much quieter than the Mavic. The disadvantages are still a slightly more complicated control system. The learning process will be a little longer. Yes, you will get more advantages if you have learned, but it will not be possible for a child to just take all this and fly away without reading the instructions. The second disadvantage is the price. The first version will cost around $2000, the second around $3,500. And the last minus – well, it won't work to order it in thousands from the first month. Because scaling up production will take about 2-3 months," Babenko noted.

The company plans to launch mass production by the end of the summer. Babenko set a goal to develop production capacities in half a year to meet at least half of the front's needs. At the same time, according to him, the bulk of purchases will be made by military units and charitable foundations, whose orders will be enough for the first time. That is, the developers of the "Ukrainian Mavic" do not necessarily have to rely on the state as the main customer of their product. Usually, the state is included in the contracting a few months after the emergence of an effective solution.

The large number of Ukrainian development teams also has a problem – the lack of unification. Each drone developed in Ukraine has its own remote controls and control sticks, its own communication and data transmission systems, separate batteries and propellers, and unique flight characteristics. The military is faced with non-standard solutions, which are strikingly different from the unified "Mavic". This creates a risk of overloading the training system and military logistics.

When it comes to mass supplies to the troops, it is not a fact that Ukrainian production facilities will be able to meet the needs of the Defense Forces. The same Chinese DJI has been collecting the best solutions around the world for years, copying them or buying out controlling stakes in suppliers in Europe. The best example is the already mentioned Swedish Hasselblad, which manufactures cameras for Chinese drones and has been controlled by DJI since 2017. Thus, for the production of Mavic drones, the Chinese have created a closed ecosystem in which they are fundamentally independent of global changes in the world.

Ukrainian manufacturers take various solutions from external suppliers and assemble the finished product like a designer.

The development results show that the Ukrainian UAV will not have significant advantages over the basic Mavic in price, and the components will be of Chinese origin, which the state would prefer to avoid.

Ideally, the state should stimulate the production of components in Ukraine, but it is hampered by market rules. Currently, there is a discriminatory norm that exempts imported components for drones from VAT, and there is no similar benefit for domestic manufacturers. Accordingly, it is more profitable for manufacturers of the final product to buy Chinese rather than Ukrainian.

The Ukrainian military is waiting for the appearance of Ukrainian analogues of the "Mavik". The process of the appearance of the corresponding domestic technology cannot occur instantly, and therefore local manufacturers need to quickly go through all the stages that their Chinese colleagues went through: from the selection of the best foreign components, even if at first this will significantly increase the cost of drones, to the development of their own programs and components. With the increase in the production of drones and the development of new components, the prices of drones will gradually decrease. Their quality and reliability will also increase, which is one of the key factors for work in the army.

But so far, the Ukrainian defense complex does not have its own solutions to replace the Mavic, so it will have to continue adapting to economic and political realities.

But what Ukraine is good at producing is FPV drones. There are many ready-made solutions, the implementation of which is limited only by the availability of money. The fighters of the anti-tank company of the 13th brigade of the Charter National Guard are collecting equipment for FPV drones, which will allow them to hit the Russian occupiers in the Kharkiv region even more accurately and much further than they expect. You can help the military at this link.