The Japanese drone company taking on Russia in Ukraine
Terra Drone is one of the world’s leading suppliers of unmanned aerial vehicles and has received its country’s first domestic order
To the inevitable question of what a Japanese businessman is doing in the war in Ukraine, Toru Tokushige, chairman of drone maker Terra Drone Corporation, provides two reasons: a business opportunity that doesn’t exist in his country and the conviction that Japan is an archipelago at high risk of attack.
Tokushige, 56, received EL PAÍS in his office in central Tokyo, and during the whole conversation kept his fingers on the keyboard of a laptop connected to a giant screen. On a map of Ukraine he points to Kharkiv, 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) from the Russian border, where Amazing Drones — the maker of interceptor drones in which he is now the majority shareholder — is based. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city by population, is a frequent target of Russian Shahed kamikaze drones, and companies like Amazing Drones change location every six months.
A graduate engineer from Kyushu University, he worked six years in Silicon Valley and founded Terra Drone in 2016 to build industrial drones that inspect energy and construction infrastructure. Since 2020 the company has been listed among the world’s leading providers of commercial drone services by German consultancy Drone Industry Insights (Droneii). In 2024 Terra Drone began trading on the Growth section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, a segment for high-potential emerging companies. Before thinking about Ukraine, Tokushige had unsuccessfully tried to offer his technology to the Japanese military.
He ran into a complicated defense sector, subject to bidding processes that take years and dominated by giants such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). Determined to “find leads,” in September 2025 he traveled to Ukraine to attend defense trade shows. He found a market saturated with FPV (first-person view) drones — remote‑controlled attack craft some European outlets have labeled “cheap kamikazes.” Tokushige describes them as mass-produced devices, easy to manufacture and assembled with Chinese components. He then looked for a differentiated product and found Amazing Drones’ interceptor, a drone designed by Ukrainian engineers and military personnel to shoot down a target in mid‑flight. “I was very impressed,” he says. He highlights its low price (around $3,000) and sums up the lesson of the war in Ukraine: it’s not the country with the biggest army that survives, but the one that spends the least per strike.
With the addition of Japanese technology, Amazing Drones developed the Terra A1, a short‑range rocket‑type interceptor with an explosive warhead. The announcement that Terra Drone had invested in the Ukrainian firm prompted a protest from the Russian Foreign Ministry. In a statement, Russia cited “systematic criminal provocations by Ukraine using unmanned aerial vehicles against civilian sites” and called the Japanese investment an “openly hostile gesture harmful to the security interests of our country.” It also lamented Tokyo’s “unfriendly” policy toward Russia under new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and said: “Relations between our two nations have reached a historic low.” According to the Jiji Press news agency, Japan’s ambassador in Moscow objected to the complaint.
On April 28, Terra Drone announced that a Terra A1 drone had for the first time shot down a “long‑range unmanned aerial threat” and published a video on YouTube. The infrared footage shows the pursuit of a device with the delta‑wing silhouette typical of the Shahed, an Iranian design produced in Russia at a cost of about $40,000 per unit. That same day Terra Drone announced an alliance with a second Ukrainian defense tech company, WinnyLab LLC, to develop a fixed‑wing drone called the Terra A2. Both the Terra A1 and Terra A2 exceed the Shahed’s top speed — about 125 miles per hour — by more than 60 miles per hour.
Real‑time testing
During his 14 visits to Ukraine over the past 10 months, Tokushige has received numerous air‑raid alerts on his phone. “They’re daily and come in at two, three and four a.m.,” he explains, and recalls that many times he has had to spend the night in underground shelters. He adds that the frequency of the attacks allows for real‑time testing in a daily combat environment. Drone makers receive constant feedback from the troops and requests for changes that improve the product in three‑month cycles. His plan to optimize the interceptor and enter the international market includes scaling production to 1,000 units a month from the current 100.
Terra Drone is linked to Indra following the 2023 acquisition of Unifly, a Belgian leader in Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management that participates in the U‑Space digital drone management platform in partnership with the Spanish company and Airbus. If Ukraine opened a new overseas business line, the war in the Middle East prompted Terra Drone’s entry into the Japanese market when the Ministry of Defense issued an urgent tender to manufacture drones in June. Thirty‑eight international companies applied, and in an unusual, expedited decision the ministry selected four models, including Terra Drone’s proposal. The Japan Maritime Self‑Defense Force carried out trials under real conditions and on August 25 the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) announced a procurement contract with Terra Drone for mass production of its Terra B1 model.
The contract not only validates Tokushige’s technology but marks a milestone in the usual timelines of Japan’s defense sector, moving from trials to large‑scale industrial production in a matter of weeks.
Although Japan’s constitution remains pacifist on paper, in practice the country has a progressively better‑armed military, a defense budget close to 2% of GDP and companies that can export lethal weapons. The businessman favors amending the Basic Law and cites an argument almost identical to the official stance: “We are surrounded by China, North Korea, and Russia — some of the most dangerous places in the world. If we don’t have the means to defend ourselves, we could be invaded easily.”
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