Skyeton

Skyeton was founded in Kyiv in 2006 as a manufacturer of light aircraft such as the two-seat K-10 Swift and turned to unmanned aircraft after 2014. Its founder is Oleksandr Stepura. The company prototyped its first fixed-wing surveillance UAV in 2014; in 2018 its Raybird system passed state testing under a contract with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, and in 2019 it set a Ukrainian UAV endurance record of 24.5 hours. Since 2022 Raybird has been one of the main long-range reconnaissance UAVs of the Ukrainian forces. Skyeton reports more than 500 employees, including over 100 engineers in research and development. In May 2026 its Kyiv office was destroyed in a Russian air attack; the company said it had already distributed production across Ukraine and abroad.

Raybird is a fixed-wing UAS with a maximum take-off weight of 23 kg, a wingspan of 2.96 to 4.2 m, up to 24 hours of flight time, a data link range of more than 200 km and a maximum flight range of 2,500 km. It is used for deep reconnaissance, targeting and fire control, radio-frequency intelligence and data-link relay, as well as for border control, maritime surveillance and infrastructure inspection. According to the company, more than 1,000 aircraft have been produced and they have logged over 350,000 hours of combat missions; in 2026 Skyeton announced an anti-interceptor upgrade for Raybird and presented a new system, Stormbird. The company also offers operator training, round-the-clock support and rental.

Because martial law restricts exports of Raybird from Ukraine, Skyeton opened a plant in Slovakia, where its group company Tropozond s.r.o. has been building Raybird under the Skyeton brand since spring 2024; the founder put the investment at USD 3.5 million. In the United States, the affiliated company Skyeton Inc. received a USD 10.64 million US Army contract for Raybird reconnaissance drones in 2026.