UK drone factories enter Russia-Ukraine confrontation as Kremlin adviser raises prospect of deniable attacks
By Mehak Najeeb I SCN
LONDON — British factories producing drones and other military technology for Ukraine could face attacks from “unknown sources,” a Kremlin adviser has warned, pushing the confrontation between Moscow and London into potentially more dangerous territory as Britain increasingly moves Ukrainian weapons technology and production onto UK soil. Andrei Fedorov, a former Russian deputy foreign minister who now advises the Kremlin, told BBC Newsnight there could be a “paramilitary” response after Britain agreed deeper technology-sharing arrangements with Kyiv, language that stops short of an official Russian threat but raises the prospect of the kind of deniable disruption European governments have increasingly associated with the wider confrontation over Ukraine.
The timing matters because Britain's role in Ukraine's war effort is changing fundamentally. London is no longer simply purchasing weapons from British companies and shipping them east: the two countries are integrating parts of their defence-industrial bases, allowing Ukrainian battlefield-developed systems to be manufactured in Britain at scale. Under the UK-Ukraine technology-sharing programme, the Octopus interceptor drone — developed by Ukrainian engineers and refined with British industry — is being produced in the UK with a target of thousands of units a month, while Ukraine's largest drone manufacturer has separately committed £200 million to two British facilities expected to create about 500 skilled jobs. The British government says Octopus is designed to intercept Russian Shahed-type attack drones cheaply before they reach Ukrainian homes, energy facilities and other targets.
That industrial shift changes the geography of Britain's involvement. In earlier stages of the war, much of the political argument centred on whether British-supplied weapons could be used against targets inside Russia; manufacturing Ukrainian-designed systems in Britain creates a different question because facilities located hundreds of miles from the battlefield are becoming part of the supply chain sustaining Ukraine's military capability. The UK government announced in February that a new Suffolk facility would manufacture drones for Ukraine, while separately confirming that British production of Octopus interceptors was being ramped toward thousands per month. London describes the programme as part of the UK-Ukraine 100 Year Partnership and a way to simultaneously strengthen Ukraine and expand Britain's own defence-industrial capacity.
Fedorov's remarks should nevertheless be treated carefully. He is a Kremlin adviser and former senior diplomat, but there is no verified evidence in the available reporting that President Vladimir Putin or Russia's defence ministry has issued an order to attack a British factory, and an adviser's prediction or warning cannot responsibly be presented as Russian operational policy. His use of “unknown sources,” however, is notable precisely because it describes potential action without openly assigning it to the Russian state — a formulation that enters an already sensitive European security debate over sabotage, cyberattacks, arson and other incidents Western intelligence officials have suspected of being linked to Moscow. Russia has repeatedly rejected Western accusations that it conducts sabotage operations in Europe.
European security agencies have been confronting that problem for years. Reuters previously documented a suspected Russian sabotage campaign involving fires, attempted attacks and plots against military-linked infrastructure and companies across Europe, with Western officials and analysts saying one possible objective was to undermine support for Ukraine while operating below the threshold that might provoke a conventional NATO military response. Moscow has denied involvement in such operations. That background does not prove any future incident at a British drone plant would be Russian-directed, but it explains why a Kremlin-linked figure publicly invoking attacks by unidentified actors is more consequential than ordinary political rhetoric.
Britain's expanding drone programme also gives Moscow a strategic reason to focus increasingly on industrial capacity rather than individual weapons deliveries. The UK said it delivered more than 85,000 military drones to Ukraine in six months during 2025, while its current programme seeks to turn Ukrainian combat experience into systems that can be manufactured quickly by British industry. Octopus illustrates that model: Ukrainian engineers developed the interceptor from battlefield experience, British industry helps refine and manufacture it, and the resulting drones are sent back to Ukraine to counter Russian attacks. In effect, battlefield innovation is being transferred west, industrialised inside NATO territory and returned east at much greater scale.
That model could become more consequential than any single drone. Ukraine has developed an unusually rapid defence-innovation cycle during the war, particularly around inexpensive unmanned systems, electronic warfare and battlefield software, while Britain possesses capital, industrial facilities and access to larger Western defence markets. Combining the two allows Ukraine to move production away from factories vulnerable to Russian missile attacks while giving Britain direct access to technology continuously tested under combat conditions. It also creates precisely the strategic dilemma highlighted by Fedorov's remarks: moving production into Britain protects manufacturing from conventional Russian strikes but potentially makes British industrial sites themselves part of Moscow's broader threat calculations.
For London, the legal and security boundary remains critical. An overt Russian military strike against a defence factory on British territory would represent an extraordinary escalation involving a NATO member and could trigger alliance consultations and potentially collective-defence questions depending on the circumstances. Covert sabotage, cyber disruption or action by unattributed actors occupies a deliberately murkier space, where attribution can take weeks or months and governments must determine whether an incident is criminal, state-sponsored or something else before deciding how to respond. That ambiguity is precisely why Western officials have become increasingly concerned about so-called hybrid operations designed to impose costs without crossing an unmistakable threshold into direct interstate war.
Britain has shown no indication that Fedorov's remarks will halt the programme. The government's published strategy instead points toward deeper integration: the UK-Ukraine Strategic Dialogue committed both governments to continue Programme LYRA, scale production of Octopus drones and identify additional joint defence-technology projects, while ministers have explicitly presented domestic drone production as both military support for Kyiv and an investment in British jobs and national defence capability.
The significance of the Kremlin adviser's warning therefore lies less in whether an attack actually follows than in what it reveals about the next phase of the war. Ukraine's defence industry is no longer contained geographically within Ukraine. Its designs, engineers, investment and production are increasingly being embedded inside allied countries, particularly Britain, making the industrial rear of Ukraine's war effort progressively international. Moscow can attack Ukrainian factories conventionally; facilities operating inside NATO territory present an entirely different strategic problem.
That is also why the phrase “unknown sources” deserves scrutiny without being exaggerated. There is currently no verified basis to report that Russia has decided to attack British drone factories, and SCN NEWS does not treat Fedorov's remarks as evidence of such an operational decision. What can be established is that a Kremlin adviser has publicly raised the possibility of deniable action just as Britain is transforming itself from one of Ukraine's principal weapons donors into a manufacturing base for Ukrainian-developed military technology — a shift that increasingly brings the infrastructure supporting the war closer to NATO territory even while the conventional battlefield remains in Ukraine.