Estonia Is Writing Its Own Playbook to Build a Defense Industry

From a control tower overlooking a muddy field in central Estonia, Maido Ruusmann and a pair of local investors watched as a meter-long spy drone was launched into the air using a giant elastic band. It climbed to a height of a kilometer and traced circles in the sky, sending data and images back to about a dozen people huddled around monitors on the ground below.

Ruusmann, a member of parliament from the southern part of the country, organized the demonstration less for national security reasons than for local economic ones. Like many rural areas, his hometown of Tõrva has seen its population decline over the years. Ruusmann was hoping that if the investors were to reach a deal with Skyassist, the Ukrainian defense company that manufactures the drone, they would set up a production facility in his region.