Business
From florist to drone maker: How the weapon became so mainstream
Gideon LongBusiness reporter
Kseniia KalmusThe ongoing conflict in Ukraine is often described as the world’s “first drone war”. It has led to a continuing huge growth in the production of military drones, both within and outside Ukraine.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Kseniia Kalmus was a floral artist. She co-owned a flower shop in Kyiv and travelled around Europe showcasing her floral arrangements.
Now, she makes drones for use against the Russians.
“It was just an obvious decision for me,” she tells the BBC from the Ukrainian capital. “I just wanted to help my country, help my people and the military.”
Ms Kalmus says that after the war began back in February 2022, she raised money to buy anything the Ukrainian soldiers asked for, from vehicles to medicine and uniforms. But as time went by, the requests from the front line changed.
“I realised that all the requests were for FPV [first-person view] drones,” she recalled. “So I started raising money for that, specifically, and then I decided to produce them.”
These days, she and her fellow volunteers churn out hundreds of drones each month – small quadcopters with plastic X-shaped frames and a rotor blade on each corner – the kind of thing you might use to take aerial photographs at your wedding. Strap a small bomb to it though, and it becomes a deadly weapon.
Combat drones, delivery drones, surveillance drones, underwater drones – drones have become a key weapon of war globally, whether it be small hand-operated quadcopters, or high-tech military drones that look like small, unmanned aeroplanes and can travel long distances and cause enormous damage on impact.
Before 2022 there were just a handful of companies in Ukraine making drones. Now, there are hundreds. Kyiv says that around three-quarters of Russian losses on the battlefield are caused, not by bullets or conventional artillery, but by drones.
“This has been the first full-blown drone war,” says Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defence program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, and the author of several reports on drone warfare.
“There are a ton of mom-and-pop shops in Ukraine where people are making drones and assembling them in their apartments, in their garages and donating them to the forces. They’ve become the go-to weapon for the Ukrainians.”
And not just the Ukrainians. Drones are increasingly being used in conflicts from the Middle East, to Myanmar and Sudan.
“You see European states talking about building drone walls and other countries seeking to acquire drones because they provide them with a cheap form of air power.” Ms Pettyjohn says.
AFP via Getty ImagesThe world’s biggest defence contractors, like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, are taking note, as are smaller drone-makers like US-based AeroVironment, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Its share price has soared more than four-fold since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In Europe, Portugal’s Tekever became what is known as a unicorn company this year – valued at more than $1bn (£760m) – and Germany’s Stark is expanding its drone-making operations. It is due to open a new factory in Swindon in southwest England at the end of November.
Meanwhile, the UK government announced last year that it would be spending £4.5bn on new military drones.
“The sector is growing really quickly,” said Mike Armstrong, Stark’s managing director for the UK. “I think drones are the future of warfare. Legacy systems – artillery, tanks – they all have a place, but what we’ve seen is a major innovation which is not going away anytime soon.”
The growth in drone use for military ends has spawned its antithesis – a counter-drone industry. For every drone launched in anger on the battlefield, there is usually someone trying to jam its radio signal or shoot it down.
Anti-drone technology is also increasingly being sought by Western nations to protect key infrastructure sites. The Belgian government announced on 7 November that it was urgently trying to acquire drone defences after drone sightings forced it to temporarily close Brussels Airport.
Oleg Vornik is the CEO of DroneShield, an Australian counter-drone company.
“We make hardware and software that you can carry in your hands, you can put on a vehicle or around the edge of a military base to detect and safely take down small drones,” he says.
Since 2022, DroneShield’s share price has soared 15-fold. “We are the only public-listed counter-drone company around the world, which has helped us,” Mr Vornik adds.
As well as supplying Ukraine, Mr Vornik says DroneShield is seeing increased interest from countries in the Asian Pacific, worried about China’s use of surveillance drones. DroneShield also sells to the governments of Colombia and Mexico, which use its technology to protect facilities from the use of drones by criminal gangs.
DroneShieldMunin Dynamics is a much smaller start-up working in the same counter-drone space. Its founder is Magnus Freyer, a former paratrooper in the Norwegian army.
“We’re building a system that every soldier, whether they are a newly mobilised Ukrainian or an experienced Nato soldier, can use to defend themselves from drones,” he says. “It’s a small system that you can have a couple of in your vest, to shoot down the drone when it’s coming in.”
Experts say the next big development in drone technology is likely to be driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
At the moment, many drones used in conflicts are small, cheap devices that have to be guided to their targets by an operator – a human being with a remote control who needs to be within range of the drone, potentially placing them in danger.
But Ms Pettyjohn says that will change. “That is going to be the next real shift.
“Right now, really smart artificial intelligence is not very extensive. But you are going to start seeing groups of drones controlled by one operator, and then eventually fully autonomous drones that can collaborate.”
In the meantime, former floral artist Kseniia Kalmus says she will continue to assemble drones for use on the front line.
“I miss flowers very much and I miss that previous life, of course,” she says. “A lot of my friends, me as well, changed totally, from flower artists or from dancers to drone producers.
“But this is a question of existence. We just fight for our country, for our existence, for our culture.”
Business
Ducati Launches Panigale V4 R In India At Rs 84.99 Lakh: Check Key Specs Of This Track-Focused Superbike
Ducati has officially launched the Panigale V4 R in India, marking the arrival of its most race-focused motorcycle yet. The first unit of the 2025 Panigale V4 R was delivered on January 1, 2026, by Ducati Chennai. Bookings for the high-performance superbike are now open across Ducati dealerships in the country.
The Panigale V4 R is a homologation model developed for the World Superbike Championship. It carries forward Ducati’s long-standing “R” lineage that began with the iconic 996R. Each unit is produced in limited numbers and features a unique serial number engraved on the clip-on handlebars.
The bike is powered by a 998cc Desmosedici Stradale R V4 engine derived directly from Ducati’s MotoGP and WorldSBK machines. The engine produces 218 hp at 15,500 rpm, with a redline stretching to 16,500 rpm. With an optional racing exhaust, output rises to 235 hp, and up to 239 hp with Ducati Corse Performance Oil. Ducati claims a top speed exceeding 330 km/h in full race trim.
Advanced Aerodynamics
The Panigale V4 R features MotoGP-inspired aerodynamics, including new side-mounted aerodynamic wings that generate downforce at high lean angles. These are paired with larger biplane wings that improve stability and front-end grip at high speeds.
The motorcycle uses an aluminium chassis and a hollow swingarm designed for better feedback and handling. Suspension duties are handled by fully adjustable Öhlins components, while braking is managed by Brembo Hypure monobloc calipers.
Racing Electronics
The bike is equipped with Ducati’s advanced electronic suite, including traction control, wheelie control, slide control, launch control, and engine brake management. A 6.9-inch TFT display with a dedicated “Grip Meter” provides real-time feedback to the rider.
Price and Availability
The Ducati Panigale V4 R is priced at Rs 84.99 lakh (ex-showroom) in India. Available only in Ducati Red, it is a limited-production, track-focused motorcycle.
As well as economic growth and taxes, cash ISA cuts were one of the main topics of conversation following the Budget, after Rachel Reeves and the government unveiled plans to encourage people to invest.
It’s undeniable that, over the long term, investing money is a better option than merely cash saving. But in Britain, at least, investment hasn’t been part of recent culture or education.
That appears to be changing, with the conversation around investment going on all year – a positive move, even if it only helps people realise there is another option.
That shift is likely to continue into the new year as a multi-organisation advertising campaign gets underway and ISA season rolls around – hopefully encouraging some to take their first steps into a long-term journey.
None of this comes as a surprise to the companies that are our access points to investing: they have been steadily growing in activity all year, and in 2026, you – the potential customer – are likely to take centre stage. Here, The Independent looks at the changing face of UK investing – and how different platforms are trying to win your custom.
Legacy vs Challenger
There are a multitude of investment platforms, as they are known, to choose from. Very broadly, you can split them into established financial powerhouses and newer, tech-led challengers.
Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, interactive investor, Fidelity – they come into the former category. Your own high street banks do too, most offering investing products alongside your normal accounts.
They are trusted because they’ve been doing the job for years, providing easy access and a pain-free route from your current account to ISA and beyond.
But, also because they’ve been doing it for years, some did the big bank thing: got stuck in their ways and didn’t move with the times, allowing newcomers to sneak onto the scene.
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You’ll have seen or heard their names, watched the adverts, possibly even downloaded the apps: Freetrade, eToro, Trading 212, Revolut, Robinhood, Chip and more.
They all vary, yet share traits: they’ll tend to come with stand-out names, bright colours, low fees, more options or bold adverts.
Which suits you best depends on how you plan to manage your portfolio, how frequently you’ll buy or sell and perhaps how much you want to pay on an ongoing basis, but cumulatively they’ve changed the landscape of investing in the UK.
Of course, the established names have fought back: launching spin-off firms to attract younger customers or bringing everything back in-house to offer professional services, rebranding and re-energising and perhaps even re-realising that British adults’ long-term plans are the next must-win battleground to play on.
The choice is there – now must come the encouragement for more people to choose and use them.
UK investing culture
Speak to those working in or around finance about the push to encourage more retail investors (that’s what the everyday public is referred to as) and one answer comes back over and over: more education and awareness is needed.
But at least something is being done – at least the conversation has been restarted.
“Investing is something that’s being spoken about a lot now, but five years ago it wasn’t the case,” Jordan Sinclair, president of Robinhood UK, told The Independent.
“In Norway or Sweden, they have a great culture of saving regularly, and they have tax wrappers which look a lot like our ISA. But what’s probably missing versus Sweden is how do you educate people on how to use that? How to think about their money, where to invest it.
“Some of our research shows that the average amount people believed you needed to start [investing] was over £2,200. Just to start.
“When you look at some [legacy providers], and they havea minimum amount £500, account fees, £11.95 for the first trade… you can’t blame people for saying ‘I’ll just leave it in my cash account’.
“We see an opportunity to level the playing field, catch up to some of those countries – and we’ll do it in our own way, maybe with still a slight bias towards cash savings but some of the money will be working much harder for customers.”
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In the US, people are far more used to investing as a concept and as a future method of wealth. Statistics are varied because resources invariably classify “investing” differently, but Brits are generally seen to be behind the curve against European nations like Germany or parts of Scandinavia.
Improved financial education in schools coming into the curriculum might bear fruit in a decade, but there’s a big chunk of the population who could be doing more with their money now, if they knew how.
“Where I think there’s room for collaboration is on initiatives to make sure the regulator hears what firms need, and the Treasury is supported,” Sinclair said. “Revisiting risk warnings, educating customers rather than scaring them away. It’s hard to undo what’s been done, but this is about thinking for the next generation, educating today’s under-55s: what about your pension? What do you need for long-term savings?
“It’s not just thinking of today. You add up all these initiatives and the retail investment awareness campaign, all this momentum [that’s what makes long-term change].”
While those saving money might be thinking about this year or next, investing has a much longer timeframe.
For companies that operate in that space, the thinking can be even longer term – decades or more, as many of those banks and investment platforms have been around for.
“We think about what’s now and what’s next at the same time, what customers want and how we deliver something better,” Mr Sinclair explained. “Being in that growth mode is different to being at a [big bank] when you probably try to move one place in the rankings table.”
The big safeguarding concern
For Robinhood specifically, “what’s next” will be an ISA, launching before the end of the tax year in April. That will be a draw for new clients, as new features or services always are, and it’s a product most people already understand.
But when it comes to investing, education and trying to encourage people to start a new financial journey, there’s a wider concern which is especially important on newer tech-led, all-encompassing platforms.
That is: how do you effectively gateway or barricade people who are new to the entire investing arena, away from products which are inherently not suited to them?
Most people, even if they don’t invest now, will still have a broad concept of what you mean if you say “the stock market”.
Yet those same people – slowly and purposely learning about funds or dividends or any other run-of-the-mill term which could genuinely better their financial positions over the long term – are often only one missed finger-click away on their phones (or menu tab on their computers) from much more complex and risky options.
Cryptocurrencies are an obvious one. But there are also frequently options for futures trading, commodities, FX trading, CFDs, leveraged options, and even copycat trading to mimic other investors’ decisions.
There is a strong argument to suggest many of these shouldn’t be accessible by novices until they have either shown competency in standard investing, for want of a better term, or have completed courses to display a thorough understanding of what they are used for and why the risks are far higher.
But the rise of so-called everything apps appears unstoppable, and finance-led firms are part of this.
Choice is great, of course, and many people may prefer to have all their money matters under one roof, so to speak. But it also represents a challenge to not allow companies’ commercial interests to outweigh responsibility towards clients.
The battle for your custom, your money and your attention will only ramp up into 2026.
A requirement, then, must be on those platforms to ensure they educate as well as entice, and provide reliable knowledge as well as potential wealth.
The FTSE 100 index has climbed above 10,000 points for the first time, passing a significant stock market milestone, on the first trading day of the year.
Shares included in the index performed strongly in 2025, leaving the benchmark more than 21% higher than a year ago, when it stood at just over 8,260.
Rising share prices are good news for investors, including anyone with a pension or other savings that are invested in the stock market.
But the London index is dominated by large international companies, so is not a direct reflection of the UK economy’s performance.
The FTSE 100 tracks the performance of the the 100 largest companies on the London Stock Exchange. That includes mining firms Antofagasta, Rio Tinto and Peers Endeavour which have been boosted by surging metals prices.
Defence firms also performed strongly, with Bae Systems, Babcock and Rolls-Royce all saw their value increase, as did large banks, including Lloyds, Barclays, Standard Chartered and HSBC.
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