London Arms Fair Showcases Record Exhibitors Amid Ukraine Invasion – Byline Times Finds UK Company Secured £1 Million Drone Contract for Ukrainian Special Forces

London’s business was dominated this week by the world’s largest arms trade fair, boasting record visitors and exhibitors against the backdrop of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.  

The Defence Security Exhibition International (DSEI) saw numerous British armament factories exhibit their weapon systems, with one company found by Byline Times having won a recent contract worth up to £1 million from the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to arm Ukraine’s Special Forces with armed drones.

Overwatch, a UK company based in the South, is understood to have delivered between 250 and 500 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to the MOD in the last year, weapons that were then sent to Ukraine. The company, set up just over two years ago, has grown rapidly in recent years and was unveiling its developed product at the East London Excel-based event. 

The managing director, Gareth Vaughan, would not go into details about the contract, citing commercial sensitivities, but its weapon – Pholos – has the appearance of a torpedo with wings, and is designed for “precision strikes”.

­­“Our founder – Drew Michael – was in the British Army,” Gareth Vaughan, wearing a Ukraine-UK flag, told Byline Times. “He saw limitations in the existing UAV weaponry and saw opportunities to develop the armaments, using the latest technology designed to minimise collateral damage and the risk to the soldier.” 

“They are drones,” Marek Olek, Overwatch’s Chief Weapons Engineer told this newspaper. “But as a system they are loitering munitions.”

They were for specific operations, Olek explained, mainly conducted by Ukrainian Special Forces. Initially, he said, the weapons were used largely as anti-tank munitions against Russian forces but later the drones, equipped with Polish-made fuel-air-explosive, were used to clear trenches. The company argues the drone, unlike mortars, is more precise and, by being controlled at every stage of the flight, limits civilian harm. 

The UK Government has gifted significant arms to the Ukrainian military since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, including 10,000 anti-tank weapons, 2,000 UAVs, 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition and Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles.

The CEO of the UK military’s procurement arm – Defence, Equipment & Support (DE&S) – Andy Start said that “the world’s radically changed, as have the threats we face, so we’ve got to change too,” citing not just Ukraine, but China, climate change, food shortages, high inflation, skills and material shortages as “increasing threats”. 

The DE&S itself spends £13 billion a year on suppliers.

Much of that wealth was on display at the bi-annual arms fair, an event that draws significant criticism from human rights groups. Buyers and sellers from countries with poor military human rights records such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan line the enormous space.

This year, DSEI boasted more than 1,500 exhibitors, with many as 40,000 visitors attending over the four days.

The exhibition’s spokesperson, Maj Gen Roddy Porter (ret’d), told Byline Times that “the invasion of Ukraine by Russia certainly has given DSEI a real focus. Wider global uncertainty – in the South China Sea, Taiwan, the hand of Iran in the Middle East – has all added to international concerns”.

“There’s a real growth here of AI, machine learning, data processing,” Porter said.

New weapons on display included Nammo’s programmable ammunition; AeroVironment’s loitering munition – effectively a bomb that can hover over its target for up to 40 minutes; and Leonardo Helicopters UK “rep