Aeroprakt

Aeroprakt is a Kyiv-based light-aircraft manufacturer founded in 1991 by the engineer Yuri Yakovlev, who remains its chief designer. It is a civilian firm — one of the larger names in the global ultralight market — building two-seat kit and ready-to-fly aircraft such as the A-22 Foxbat, the A-32 Vixxen and the A-36 Vulcan. The A-22, first flown in 1996, is a high-wing ultralight with a roughly 1,100-kilometre range on a Rotax 912 engine; around 1,600 had been built by 2024, sold in the United States as the Valor and in Britain and Australia as the Foxbat.

That long range and low cost have made the A-22 attractive as a platform for long-range strikes against targets deep inside Russia. In April 2024, Russian reports described modified A-22 airframes striking a Shahed-136 drone factory and an oil refinery in the Republic of Tatarstan, more than 1,200 kilometres from the border — among the deepest one-way attack missions flown with a converted manned aircraft. The conversions strip out seats and controls and add fuel tanks, remote-targeting electronics and a warhead, turning a recreational aircraft into an uncrewed strike system with a reported reach near 1,300 kilometres and a unit cost around $90,000.

Reporting attributes the programme to Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), which has fielded the converted aircraft since early 2024. Later evidence suggested the agency was sourcing used A-22 airframes second-hand rather than buying them new from the factory, with some aircraft showing painted-over registration numbers — a further sign the work sits outside the manufacturer.

Aeroprakt itself says it has nothing to do with this work: Yakovlev has publicly denied that the company is involved in converting its aircraft into drones, and reporting attributes the modifications to Ukrainian military units rather than the manufacturer. The firm is included here as the origin of an airframe that has become a notable building block in Ukraine’s improvised long-range strike fleet, not as a defence contractor — a distinction that matters given how many civilian platforms have been pressed into wartime use.